
Class _JFjiii: 
Book.__.Ej 




PEKSIAN EMPIRE AND GREECE. 



listotg ^vim«rs Edited by J. R. GREEN 



HISTORY 



OF 



GREECE 



BY 



O: A. FYFFE, M.A., 

TiELLO"; AND- I-ATE TUTOR OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORj: 



'V/ITR MAPS 



NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANV 



PRIMER SERIES. 

SCIENCE PRIMERS. 

HUXLEY'S INTRODUCTORY VOLUME. 

ROSCOE'S CHEMISTRY. 

STEWART'S PHYSICS. 

GEIKIE'S GEOLOGY. 

LOCKYER'S ASTRONOMY. 

HOOKER'S BOTANY. 

FOSTER AND TRACY'S PHYSIOLOGY AND 

HYGIENE. 
GEIKIE'S PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
LUPTON'S SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 
JEVONSS LOGIC. 

SPENCER'S INVENTIONAL GEOMETRY. 
JEVONS'S POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
TAYLOR'S PIANOFORTE PLAYING. 
PATTON'S NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE 

UNITED STATES. 

HISTORY PRIMERS. 

WENDEL'S HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
FREEMAN'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
FYFFE'S HISTORY OF GREECE. 
CREIGHTON'S HISTORY OF ROME. 
MAHAFFY'S OLD GREEK LIFE. 
WILKINS'S ROMAN ANTIQUITIES. 
TIGHE'S ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 
ADAMS'S MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION. 
YONGE'S HISTORY OF FRANCE. 
GROVE'S GEOGRAPHY. 

LITERATURE PRIMERS. 

BROOKE'S ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

-W-ATKINS.'? AMERICAN LITER;AT;ijRE. 

DO W.PEN'S SHIvKSPERE. , ■ 

ALDEN'S -STUDIES IN BRYANT. : 

MORRIS'S ENCJLiSH GRAMMAR. 

MORRIS AND BOWEN'S ENGLISH 

GRAMMA R^EjXE'^CISES. ' 
.mCHOL'S ENCL'S-H COMPOSITIOI5. 

FEILK?S"PmLeLOG.V.. : .^ 

'JEBB'S GREEK^ LITERATURE. 

GLADSTONE'S HOMER. 

TOZER'S CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



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FYFFE- 


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P. 8 


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CONTENTS, 

CHAPTER I. 



lAGP 

tRE BEGINNINGS OF THE GREEKS . , , , I 



CHAPTER II. 
PELOPONNESUS DOWN TO B.C. 500— COLONIES . . 1 8 

CHAPTER III. 

ATTICA TO B.C. 500 • • • 37 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE IONIC REVOLT AND PERSIAN WARS . • , . 49 



CHAPTER V. 

THE EMPIRE OF ATHENS AND THE PEL0P0NNE3IAN 
WAR 73 



CHAPTER VI, 

SPARTA, THEBES, MACEDONIA .,...,., I02 

CHAPTER VIT. 

EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER 112 



LIST OF MAPS. 



PAGE 



r. PERSIAN EMPIRE AND GREECE . . Frontispiece. ^ 

2. GREECE AND THE ^G.EAN COASTS lO 

3. SOUTHERN GREECE . . . I9 

4. THE GREEK COLONIES. • . 34 

5. SALAMIS AND COAST OF A'lTICA ...... 63 



HISTORY PRIMERS. 
GREECE. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE GREEKS. 

I. Greeks and Italians. — Most of the history 

that we have of Europe before the birth of Ctirist is the 
history of the Greeks and ItaHans. They .were not 
the only nations in ancient Europe ; there were other 
great races, such as the Gauls, and our own forefathers, 
the Germans. Why is it that ancient history tells us so 
much about the Greeks and the Italians, and so little 
about these ? Because, while the Greeks and Italians 
learnt to live in cities, and made reasonable laws and 
governments, and grew rich by trade, these other 
nations remained savage and ignorant. If we knew 
their history during those times, it would not interest 
us. We should hear of little but battles and wan- 
dermgs; and after hundreds of years we should find 
them living in much the same rough way as at the 
beginning. But while the northern races were still 
barbarous, the Greeks and Italians had begun to Uve 
more like modern nations, and had done great deeds, 
whose effects last to this day. The Greeks saved 
Europe from being conquered by Asiatic races, and 
spread a happier and more interesting life among the 
nations round them. Not that the Greeks were 
perfect, any more than other nations, ancient or 
modern. They had faults in abundance, and a great 
part of their history is the history of discord and 
violence. But in the midst of these evils we shall 
meet with instances of the most striking goodness ; 
and while the vices of the Greeks belonged to other 
ancient nations, their good points raised them in many 



6 THE GREEKS AND OTHER RACES, [chap 

respects above all the rest of mankind. No race evei 
did so many different things well as the Greeks. They 
were the first people who thought of finding out the 
truth and the reason in everything. Busy men in our 
own day take pleasure in what remains of the Greek 
writers of poetry and history ; and artists know that 
they can never make anything more beautiful than 
what is left of Greek sculpture. Men will always be 
interested in ancient Greece, not only because the 
Greeks were so bright and so clever themselves, but 
because so many things which we value most in our 
own life, such as the desire for knowledge, the power 
of speaking eloquently, and the arts of music and 
painting, have come down to us from the Greeks. 

2. Connection of Greeks with other Races. 
Yet the Greeks were not, like the Arabs or Chinese, 
of a quite difterent race from our forefathers, the 
northern nations who were then so barbarous. In 
very ancient times, long before the oldest books were 
written, there was a people living between the 
Caspian Sea and the mountains to the west of India, 
from whom not only the Greeks and Italians but most 
other European nations, as well as the Hindoos, are 
descended. The words used by all these nations 
for certain things are very like one another; and 
this shows that there was a time when they were 
a single race, using the same words. Thus the words 
{qx father in all these languages are merely the same 
word a little changed : German, vafe?-; Greek, ttutiip 
(pater) \ Latin, pater; Old Hindoo, pita. In the 
course of time, as this people grew larger, difterent 
parts of it went oft" in different directions, and 
became distinct nations. They grew more and 
more unlike one another, and made such changes 
.n the old language which they had all spcken, that, 
instead of there being one language for all, each 
nation came to have one of its own. One part of the 
people went to India, another part to North Europe : 
Other branches spread over Italy, Greece, and Asia 



I.J GREECE MANY STATES. 7 

Minor. The Italians and Greeks were a single nation 
long after the Germans and Hindoos had separated 
from them ; and therefore their languages are much 
more like one another than either of them is to the 
language of the German or the Hindoo. Some of the 
races in the west of Asia Minor seem to have been 
originally much like the Greeks; and in very early 
times it is prooable that men crossed from the coast 
of Asia Minor to Greece, and founded kingdoms on 
the Greek coast. Afterwards bodies of Greeks settled 
on the Asiatic coast ; and therefore, though European 
Greece is called Greece Proper, the west coast of Asia 
Minor (First Map) was equally called Greece, tor 
the people who lived there were Greeks, and were 
mixed up in all that happened in Greek history. The 
Greeks did not call themselves Greeks but Hellenes 
('EXX-rjveQ) : and any district in which Hellenes lived 
was called Hellas f EXXac), whether it was in Europe, 
Asia, or Africa. We shall see how adventurous a 
people the Greeks were, and how they founded colo- 
nies in distant parts of the Mediterranean, and on 
the shores of the Black Sea. 

3. Greece not one but many States. — There 
is one great difference between ancient Greece and a 
modern countr)' like England. All England is under 
one chief government, namely the Queen acting under 
the advice of her Parliament ; and the laws made in 
Parliament are obeyed by the whole nation. Each 
town is allowed to manage some of its own affairs, 
such as lighting and paving its streets, but no town 
is independent of the laws and government of the 
whole country. We have one army and one navy 
for the whole country, and no part of England would 
think of separating itself from the rest. But Greece 
was not a single country like this. It was broken 
up into little districts, each with its own government. 
Any little city might be a complete State in itself, and 
mdependent of its neighbours. It might possess only 
A few miles of land and a few hundred inhabitants, 



8 GREECE CUT UP BY MOUNTAINS. [CHAP. 

and yet have its own laws, its own government, 
and its own army, though the army might not be 
so large as a single English regiment. In a space 
smaller than an English county there might be 
several independent cities, sometimes at war, some- 
times at peace with one another. Therefore when 
we say that the west coast of Asia Minor was part of 
Greece, we do not mean that this coast-land and Euro- 
pean Greece were under one law and one government, 
for both were broken up into a number of little inde- 
pendent States : but we mean that the people who 
lived on the, west coast of Asia Minor were just as 
much Greeks as the people who lived in European 
Greece. They spoke the same language, and had 
much the same customs, and they called one another 
Hellenes,, in contrast to all other nations of the world, 
whom they called barbarians (/3a/3/3apot), that is, " the 
unintelligible folk," because they could not understand 
their tongue. 

4. Greece cut up by Mountains.— Greece, 
from the first, was not a single State like England, but 
divided into many little ones. Homer gives a long 
list of kings who brought their forces to the siege 
of Troy (p. 11) ; and all through Greek history we 
shall be reading about a number of very small States. 
Why was this ? Because Greece was naturall}- cut up 
into little pieces by mountains. In the south of Eng- 
land we can get easily from any one place to any other; 
and, where there are hills, they are not high or rugged 
enough to prevent our having roads over them. But 
in Greece there are so many mountains really difficult 
to cross, that the fertile spots among them, where 
people settled, are quite cut off from one another; 
and in early times, before men made much use of 
ships, they would hardly ever see any one outside 
their own valleys. We shall see what a difference this 
made to Greece if we compare it with Egypt or Baby- 
lon. Egypt is the rich flat land on both sides of the 
Nile, You can sail up the Nile with the wind, and 



I.J GREEKS AND PHCENICIANS, 9 

drop down it with the current, so that it was always 
easy to go from one part of Egypt to another. Hence 
from the earUest times Egypt has been a single 
country, under one great king, like the Pharaohs in 
the Bible. It is the same with the rich flat lands 
about Babylon on the river Euphrates. There was 
nothing to separate one part of that country from 
another; a single king ruled over a large district, and 
could raise a great army. The power and magnifi- 
cence of the kings overawed the people, who had no 
thought of resisting the royal power. Hence the kings 
of Babylon became absolute masters over their sub- 
jects, like Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel iii.), and the 
people were little more than slaves. In Greece the 
case was the reverse of this. There is no one large 
flat tract in the whole of Greece. The mountains 
divide it into a number of very small districts, and in 
each of these districts the kmg was only like the chief 
among the heads of the families. He had not wealth 
enough to live in a splendid palace hke eastern kings, 
and make the people think he was a kind of god 3 
nor could he raise a great army, and overrun neigh- 
bouring countries, and make the people his slaves. 

5. Greeks and Phoenicians. — In the beginning 
then we find the Greeks, broken up into little groups, 
covering European Greece and the islands near it 
(Map, p. 10), and races very like them upon the west 
coast of Asia Minor. The rich men owned flocks 
and herds, corn-lands and vineyards ; the poor had 
httle farms of their own, or worked as labourers for 
the rich. But upon the coast a new and busier life was 
beginning. There the Greek first met the Phcenician 
(Canaanite) merchant from Tyre or Sidon (First Map) 
(see I Kings ix. 27 ; x. 22), who had begun to trade 
with distant lands, while the Greeks were still simple 
farmers. The Phcenicians had an alphabet, and a 
scale of weights and measures, long before the Greeks. 
They had made many discoveries, or learnt them from 
other Eastern nations. They had learnt how to make a 



lO 



PIRACY. fCiTAP. 

purple dye for hangings and for great men's robes from 
the shell of a little sea-creature, and how to dig mines 
and to work metals (2 Chronicles lii. 3, 7 ; Esther viii. 
15). When the best trees in the forests of Mount 
Lebanon were cut down, and the Phoenicians had 
to go m search of wood for their ships, they found 
abundance of oak, pine, and beech on the shores of 
the yEg.Tan Sea. They discovered that the root of 
the Greek evergreen oak could be used for tanning, 




GREECE AND THE ^G^AN COASTS. 



and its berries for a dye ; and often in these same 
forest districts they found copper, iron, and silver. 
Hence the Phoenicians came more and more to the 
Greek coasts, freighting their ships with goods made 
at Tyre or Sidon, and exchanging them with the 
Greeks for timber or wool, or even for men anc? 
women, whom they sold as slaves. In time the Greeks 
on the coast came to know all that the Phoenicians 
knew : they took their alphabet, their veights, and 



1.3 HOMERIC FOEMS. 1 1 

their measures ; and they made ships like those which 
the Phoenicians used, and began to sail along the 
shores. At first when they took to the sea it was 
not so much for trade as for piracy. Piracy was not 
thought wrong. A band of bold men would launch 
their vessel and sail along the coast to attack the first 
merchant-ship they might meet, or would land and 
plunder the villages on the shore. In terror of the 
pirates the inhabitants of these villages often left 
their old homes, and established themselves at some 
distance from the shore. 

6. Homeric Poems. — Two long poems have 
come down to us from the very early times of Greece, 
which the Greeks believed to have been written by a 
single poet named Homer. One of these, called the 
Iliad, tells us of the deeds of the heroes at the siege 
of Ti'oy, or Jlzon. Paris, son of Priam, king of Ilion, 
according to the stories, carried off Helen, the wife 
of Menelaus, king of Sparta ; and in order to recover 
her the Greeks united to besiege Troy, and took it 
after ten years' siege. The greatest hero among the 
Greeks in the Iliad is Achilles ; among the Trojans, 
Hector. The other poem, called the Odyssey, is 
about the wanderings and adventures of Odysseus 
(Ulysses), king of Ithaca, the wisest of all the Greeks, 
on his return home after Troy was taken. The Iliad 
gives us a picture of warfare ; the Odyssey shows us 
the quiet Ufe of the family of Odysseus at home, and 
also tells about wonderful places and people, such as 
the early Greek sailors may have brought home stories 
about, and such as we now read of in fairy tales. 
Though the Homeric poems do not relate things 
that really happened, they give us some idea of the 
way in which the Greeks must have been living when 
these poems were composed. Each district was 
governed by a king ((SuaiXeiic), who was also priest 
and oftered up the public prayers and sacrifices. 
By the side of the king there were a number of chiefs, 
also called /Jao-iAtic, whom the king assembled in 
2 



12 HOMERIC LIFE, [chap. 

council (l3ov\ri), to ask their advice upon anything 
that he intended to do. Each chief had the right to 
say what he thought : and though the king was not 
bound to go by their advice, we can see hov\^ the 
council of the chiefs would in fact diminish the king's 
power. When the king had made up his mind, he 
assembled the common people in the market-place 
(ayopd), and made known to them what he was going 
to do. The chiefs might speak to the people when 
they were thus assembled, but no one among the 
common people was allowed to speak, nor did it 
signify what the people thought. In the Homeric 
poems we hear very little about the common people : 
it was the chiefs, and not the people, who kept the 
king from being an absolute ruler. When one of 
the common people, Thersites, says what he thinks, 
Odysseus beats him severely, and the people side 
with Odysseus. Like the early ages of all countries, 
the Homeric age was a time of war and violence. 
Plundering expeditions both by land and by sea 
were common : if people could not protect them- 
selves they were liable to have their property carried 
off, and to be made into slaves themselves. War was 
carried on very cruelly, and some of the actions of 
\chilles described in the Iliad are what we should 
consider very savage. Deceit was not thought wrong, 
but was rather admired if cleverly carried out. On 
:he other hand there are many fine and beauti- 
ul qualities in the Homeric age. The members of 
a family love and respect one another. Great 
reverence is shown to parents. The wife is treated 
with more honour by her husband than she was in 
most other countries, or than she was in Greece 
itself in later times. There are deep and faithful 
friendships, and sometimes there is true affection 
even between the master and bis slave. 

7. Early Kingdoms — Crete, Troy. — We know 
very little about the events of these early times. Real 
history does not go so far back; and we have only 



I,] EARLY KINGDOMS. l% 

stones about them which tell us very little truth. 
One of the great kings in the stones is Minos, king 
of Crete (map, p. lo). Minos, the Greeks believed, 
was a just and powerful king, who ruled over all the 
Greek seas and islands, and put an end to the pirates, 
establishing peace and safety. They believed that aftei 
his death he was made a judge over the souls of the 
dead, because he had ruled so strongly and so justly. 
Now it is certain that no king in those early times 
really had such wide power as Minos is said to have 
had : but it is perhaps tme that in Crete a seafaring life 
began earlier than elsewhere in Greece, and that the 
Cretan kings did something towards checking piracy. 

On the coast of Asia Minor one of the earliest king- 
doms was the Troas, or land of Troy, at the south end 
of the Hellespont, the southernmost of the two straits 
that lead from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Its 
castle and town stood a few miles inland at the point 
where the hills begin to rise. The tales about the siege 
of Troy are perhaps only beautiful stories ; but there 
is no doubt that in the earliest times there was a tosvn 
there. We must not think of these early towns as large 
places like our modern towns. They were little more 
than villages with walls round them. 

8. Kings in Peloponnesus. — Many stories are 
told about the great families who reigned in Thebes 
and in Peloponnesus (map, p. 19), and of their war? 
and misfortunes. The greatest of all the kings in 
these stories is Agamemnon, king of Mykenae, whom 
Homer describes as commanding all the Greeks at 
the siege of Troy. Now we may be quite sure that in 
those early times the Greeks never acted all together 
in the way that Homer describes : still, whatever 
may be the truth about Agamemnon, there certainly 
were powerful kings at Mykenae and other places in the 
district of Argolis, for the walls of their castles remain 
to this day. These walls are not built in the way in 
which the later Greeks built their walls, but are made 
•jf enormous blocks of stone, so huge that the Greeks 



[4 DORIANS ENTER PELOPONNESUS. Lchap. 

thought that the builders must have been giants, and 
called such buildings Cyclopean, that is, the work of a 
Cyclops, or giant. At Tiryns in Argolis there are Cyclo- 
pean walls twenty-five feet thick, with a passage inside 
them : and at Mykenge there are walls more carefully 
built, with two great hons carved in stone over the gate- 
way. Not far from these there is a large underground 
building, the inside of which was once covered with 
plates of bronze. This was the treasure-house and 
sepulchre of the kings. 

9. Dorians enter Peloponnesus. Colonies 
in Asia. — Though the kings in ArgoHs built such 
strong castles, their kingdoms were overthrown. A 
hardy warlike tribe called Dorians left their homes in 
North Greece, and moved southward, in search of a 
fertile country. They came into Peloponnesus, and 
proved themselves stronger than the tribes who were 
then living there, who were called Ach(2ans and 
loiiiaiis. Many of the lonians would not submit to 
be ruled by Dorians : they joined with other lonians 
who were living in Attica, the country about Athens 
(map, p. 19), and sailed away to Asia Minor, where 
they settled on the central part of the coast, and on 
the islands opposite to it, and founded Miletus and 
Ephesus (Acts xix. i ; xx. 15), and other cities called 
the Ionic Colonies. Athens claimed to be the mother- 
city of the Ionic colonies, though many of them did 
not start from Attica. Many Achseans also sailed 
away from Peloponnesus, and made themselves homes 
in the island of Lesbos, and on the north part of the 
western coast of Asia Minor. The cities in this dis- 
trict were however not called the Achceaii but the 
<Eolic Colonies. Many of the Dorians too, when 
they heard of the fine climate and fertile lands across 
the sea, took ship themselves, and settled in Crete, 
and on the south part of the west coast of Asia Minor. 
The cities they founded were called the Dorian Colo- 
nies, and the most famous of them was Rhodes. Thus 
the coming of the Dorians into Peloponnesus put an 



L] COLONIES IN ASIA MINOR. 15 

end to the power of the Achaean kings whom Homer de- 
scribes, and led to the foundation of a number of great 
cities in Asia Minor. But we must not suppose that 
either the conquest or the emigration took place all at 
once : perhaps both were going on for hundreds of years. 

10. Dorians in Peloponnesus. — The Dorians 
were not numerous enough to scatter themselves over 
the whole of Peloponnesus. On the north coast, on 
the shore of the Gulf of Corinth, they allowed the 
Achseans to remain in peace. This district was there- 
fore called Achsea, and it contained twelve cities. 
Nor did the Dorians conquer the mountainous country 
of Arkadia in the middle of Peloponnesus. Arkadia 
remained as it was, and went through fewer changes 
than any other district in Greece, so that Arcadian 
came to mean rustic or old-fashioned. On the west 
coast, the land of Elis was taken by the yEtolians, 
another tribe from the north of Greece. In the rest of 
Peloponnesus the Dorians made themselves masters : 
and it is after their invasion that the old poetic stories 
end and real history begins. 

11. Armies and Assemblies. — The Greek 
States being very small, the citizens in each did not 
keep a distinct class of men for fighting, like our 
army ; but every citizen of a certain age had to serve 
as a soldier when there was war. Another consequence 
of the smallness of the Greek States was, that in each 
of them the whole body of citizens who were allowed 
to have any share in the government was able to 
assemble in one place. In a large modern State 
like P^ngland, it is impossible for all the citizens to 
meet at a single spot ; and therefore the towns and 
counties choose men to represent them in Parliament 
This is called Representative Government, and it 
makes it possible for a large country to be free and 
well governed. The opposite of Representative 
Government is where the citizens all actually meet 
together, as in the Greek States ; but this is only pos- 
sible where the State is very small. 



lb GREEK GODS AND HEROES. [chap. 

12. Greek Gods and Heroes. — The Greeks 
believed in a number of gods, and in each place 
certain gods were worshipped more than the rest. 
They thought that each god cared for some par- 
ticular places or matters, and did not trouble himseH 
about others. Thus the goddess Athene was believed 
to protect Athens, and greater honours were paid to 
hei there than to any other deity. Some of the gods 
vv^ere originally things in nature : for instance, Apollo 
was originally the sun ; but the Greeks made divine 
persons out of them, and stories were told of the 
deeds they had done. Except that they lived for 
ever, and had great power, the Greek gods were 
very like human beings ; and they were represented 
by statues in the form of men and women, but more 
grand and beautiful. The Greeks never worshipped 
animals, like the Egyptians, nor made their gods in 
frightful shapes, like the Hindoos. The king of the 
gods was Zeus. The Heroes were not gods, but a 
race stronger than men, who lived long ago, and did 
wonderful things that men cannot do now. The tales 
told about the gods and heroes are called myths (hvOol). 
Every village had some myths of its own, and when 
men tried to put them all together they made long 
books, and the whole collection of myths is called My- 
thology. The Greeks not only beHeved the myths to 
be real facts, but there was hardly anything they would 
not account for by some story about the gods oi 
leroes. Each city had myths which explained how 
its customs had begun. For instance, if a Spartan 
were asked why there were always two kings at 
Sparta (p. 22) he would say, " Because Aristodemus, 
the hero who first led the Spartans into the country, 
had twin sons." 

The gods were worshipped by prayer and sacri- 
fices, but worship was not then, as it is now, some- 
thing in which everybody could join. In each place 
there were origmally groups of families which had 
certain worships of their own, and whoever did not 



a] THE EARLIEST UNIONS RELIGIOUS. 17 

belong to these families had not a share in the same 
worship. 

13. The Earliest Unions religious. — We come 
nou' to the first kind of union that existed between 
Greek States. Long before there were any alliances or 
treaties of peace, tribes that lived near one another 
would unite to worship a certain god at a particular 
spot, and would agree to treat his sanctuary, or the 
ground set apart for his worship, as holy ground, even 
when at war with one another, and to join in defending 
it from all harm. Solemn festivals would be held at 
regulai times, in which all the tribes concerned might 
take part ; and deputies from these tribes would meet 
to see that the temple and its lands were properly 
looked after, and suffering no harm. Gradually, from 
acting in agreement in what concerned the temple, a 
set of tribes would make agreements about other mat- 
ters, for instance not to do certain cruel things when 
at war with one another : and at last they might make a 
treaty of perpetual peace, and undertake to defend one 
another against all enemies. They would bind them- 
selves to this treaty by taking an oath before the god 
whom they all worshipped. This is how the earliest 
unions of States arose. In such a union there was 
generally one State stronger than the rest; this State 
was said to liave the hegemony^ that is, the leadership 
(jiyeixoi'ia) of the league. Therefore as the earliest 
leagues had arisen out of religious unions, and were 
founded upon the oath taken before the god, the later 
Greeks, whenever they made a league, established 
a common worship or festival, in which all the mem- 
bers of the league joined (p. 75). 

14. Delphic Amphictyony. — One great re 
ligious union existed in the north of Greece in 
early times. Twelve tribes united to worship Apollo 
at Delphi (map, p. 19), and to protect his temple 
there ; and deputies from all of them met twice 
a year to settle matters that had to do with the 
temple. This union, which was called the Delphic 



i8 DELPHIC ORACLE. [chap. 

Aniphictyony, did not grow into an actual league, and 
the tribes continued to make war on one another ; 
but they took an oath not to do two things when 
at war, namely, not to destroy one another's towns, 
and not to cut off running water from a town when 
besieged. The meeting of the deputies was called 
the Amphictyonic Council, that is, the Council of the 
neighbours (afjKpii^Tiovsc). 

15. Delphic Oracle. — The temple at Delphi, 
from being the common sanctuary of these twelve 
tribes, and one of the meeting-places of the Amphic- 
tyonic Council, became the most important temple 
in Greece. Orades were given there, that is, pre- 
tended answers of the god Apollo to those who came 
to consult him. The managers of the temple were 
very skilful men ; they found out what was going on 
in distant places, and often gave very good advice 
in the oracles. The fame of the temple was carried 
over all Greece, and into foreign lands. In early 
times the priests seem to have done good to Greece 
by spreading ideas of justice and goodness in the 
name of the god, and by making the scattered Greek 
States feel that they were one nation, and that there 
was 6^ divine law which they must all obey. As, 
however, the priests gave oracles upon the struggles 
between States, and on questions of war and govern- 
ment, powerful men who wished for the support of the 
oracle began to bribe the priests to take their side. 
Thus the oracle lost credit : and in the Persian wars, 
of which we shall presently read, it damaged itself 
still more by disheartening the Greeks instead of en 
couraging them to make a bold resistance. 

CHAPTER II. 

PELOPONNNESUS DOWN TO B.C. 500. —COLONIES. 

]. Dorians and old Population.— The con- 
quest of Peloponnesus must have been made little by 
little, for there were many strong places, and the 
Dorians were very few in number compared with the 



people in the land. 



DORIANS AND OLD POPULA TION, 19 

The Dorians divided themselves 
into bands ; and each band became a little independ- 
ent State. They did not destroy the inhabitants of 
the districts where they settled, but treated them as 
an inlerior people, and allowed them no share in the 




SOUTU£RN GRG£Ca. 



government. In Sparta the ancient inhabitants never 
gained power again, but in most of their settlements 
the Dorians were not able to keep everything in their 
own hands for very long. We shall see in this chapter 
how the Dorians and the conquered people dealt with 
one another in the different States. 



20 PERICEKI AND HELOTS, [CHAP. 

2. Sparta. — One Dorian band took possession of 
tlie town of Lacedsemon, or Sparta, with its corn fields 
(fTTraprrj, sparte, sowii landf from aTretpo)), Sit the foot 
of Mount Taygetus, on the banks of the river Eurotas, 
twenty miles from its mouth. They were Hke a little 
army in an enemy's country. All around them was 
tha old Achaean population. If they wanted more 
land, they could only gain it by fighting. Little by 
little they pushed their border forward. They attacked 
and conquered their neighbours, both Dorian and 
Achaean, one after another, until they had won the 
country on both sides of the Eurotas as far as the sea. 
The best of the land they took to themselves ; the rest 
they left to its old owners. 

3. Periceki and Helots. — The conquered popu- 
lation was divided into two classes — Perioski {-rrepLoiKoi, 
dwelkf's-around), the old inhabitants, who were allowed 
to keep their farms, and Helots {elXioTeg, perhaps 
from e\w, take prisoner)^ serfs employed to till the 
lands of the Spartans. The Periceki had to serve as 
soldiers with the Spartans, without being allowed any 
voice in the government ; they were dealt with as 
inferiors, so that marriage was forbidden between 
Spartans and Periceki; but they kept their property 
and were not ill treated. The lot of the Helots was 
far worse. A certain number of Helot famihes had 
to live on each of the farms which the Spartans had 
seized ; they were not allowed to go away, or to 
choose their own occupations, but had to cultivate 
the land and to take a fixed quantity of corn and 
wine and oil every year to Sparta to the owner of 
the farm. What the farni produced above this they 
were allowed to keep. They were not, however, 
quite like ordinary slaves, for they might not be 
sold or removed from the land. Now this was the 
condition of a great part of the English nation in 
early times, and of a great part of the Russians till 
very lately; but the Helots were not content in 
their oppression, like a people who had never beeo 



II.] LAWS OF LYKURGUS. 21 

anything but serfs ; they knew that they had been a 
free people until the coming of the Spartans, and that 
they were as good Greeks as their masters. They bore 
such hatred to the Spartans that it was said a Helot 
svould gladly eat a Spartan raw. The Spartans were 
in constant fear of a revolt of the Helots ; and a band 
of young Spartans was employed to keep a watch 
u-pon them, and secretly murder those who seemed 
bravest and most danrerous. 

4. Spartans a body of Soldiers. — The 
Dorians, when they jonquered Peloponnesus, lived 
like a band of soldiers; and though in most of their 
settlements they tool to more peaceable ways and to 
city life, in Sparta they were so placed that they had 
to keep to their soMierly habits, and make them even 
more severe. While in other parts of Peloponnesus 
men took to peaceful occupations, the Spartans were 
in constant warfare. They lived like an army on duty. 
They could only conquer their neighbours, and be 
safe against the Helots, by being always ready to 
fight. In the Sta^-es upon the coast the old in- 
habitants gained riches by trading, and after a time 
the rule of the Dorians was broken down : but at 
Sparta, far inland, there was no commerce, and the 
Spartanp were resolved to remain absolute masters of 
the oi-bev inhabitants of the coimtry, though they were 
not a tenth part of their number. Therefore they 
thought only of making themselves as strong a body 
of soldiers as ] Possible. Their town was not a place 
of business like other Greek towns : to the last it 
remained like a large village, without fine buildings j 
xnd it was too securely placed to need a wall. The 
laws and customs of Sparta, which were said to have 
been made by Lykurgus, turned the whole life of the 
Spartans into a preparation for war. No child was 
allowed to be reared who was not strong and health) 
in body. At the age of seven, boys were taken from 
their families and trained by state officers. They had 
to pracuce gymnastics and the use of arms, and to go 



22 SPARTAN CONSTITUTION. [chap. 

through every exercise that a soldier woulrl go through 
in actual warfare. They learnt to bear all sorts of 
hardships without complaining ; they were kept short 
of food in order to encourage them to hunt on the 
mountains ; and sometimes they were flogged almost 
to death before the altars of the gods. Learning and 
knowledge did not exist in those days ; and when they 
began the Spartans did not care for them. But the 
boys were not brought up as mere savages ; they were 
taught a simple warlike kind of music and poetry. 
Thus during their boyhood the Spartans were trained 
like soldiers ; and when they grew up to be men 
their life was just as hard. Instead of living at home 
with their wives, they had to drill every day, and to 
dine together at the public mess, and to sleep in 
barracks. Fifteen men dined at each table ; the 
dinner was very coarse and poor, the chief dish being 
black barley-broth. Even the women were made to 
practise gymnastics. The women had much of the 
high spirit of the men, and were treated with more 
respect than in any other Greek State. They loved 
brave men and hated cowards ; and a Spartan mother 
would rather hear that her son was dead than that he 
had run away from battle. No Spartan was allowed to 
trade ; and, as their farms were cultivated by Helots, 
they had nothing to do with agriculture, and could 
give their whole lives up to military exercises. In 
order to prevent trade with foreigners, the Spartans 
had iron money, which was of no use in other States. 
5. Government — Kings, Senate, Ephors.-— 
Almost everywhere else in Greece government by 
kings came to an end, and the nobles ruled ; but 
at Sparta, which disliked all change, kings continued. 
There were always two Spartan kings together, and 
this prevented their being too powerful. The council 
of chiefs which we read of in Homer was preserved in 
Sparta as a Senate of twenty-eight old men, all past 
sixty, called Gei-usia (from yeptoi', old vian) : and, just 
as in Homer the common people meet in the market- 



».] ARGOS, 23 

place to hear what the king will say, so at Sparta the 
whole assembly of citizens had to meet in order to pass 
a law. But the magistrates alone might speak ; the 
citizens had only to vote yes or 710, and had really 
very little to do with the management of the State. 
So far the forms of government at Sparta were like 
what we see in Homer, except that there were two 
kings. But in the course of time new magistrates 
arose, called Ephors (e.(fi()poi, overseers), who soon 
made themselves the real governors of the State. 
The Ephors were elected by the assembly, and con- 
trolled all Spartans, and even the kings. They trans- 
acted business with other States, and proposed all laws. 
They had not to account to anyone for what they had 
done, and therefore there was a greater secrecy in the 
government of Sparta than anywhere else in Greece. 

6. Argos. — Sparta was not at first the strongest 
of the Dorian States. In the old Achsean times the 
greatest king had been the king of Mykenae in the 
north-east of Peloponnesus; and now, though Mykense 
declined, the neighbouring town of Argos was at first 
the strongest Dorian state in Peloponnesus. There 
were many other Dorian settlements in the north-east, 
such as Corinth and Sikyon ; these were all in alliance 
with Argos, and united in worshipping Apollo, as the 
god of the league. They sent offerings every year to 
a temple of Apollo, which stood at Argos ; and ac- 
knowledged Argos to be the head of the league (p. 17). 
Argos had also a large territory of its own, extending 
far southwards along the east coast. When, therefore, 
the Spartans went on conquering eastwards, they came 
into conflict with the Argives, and from that time 
Sparta and Argos were rivals and enemies. The 
Argives were driven out of their southern territory, 
and then out of the border district called Kynuria, so 
that Sparta had now all the country between Mount 
Taygetus and the eastern sea. This is the country 
called LacoJiia (AaKujrifci)). At the same time the 
authority of Argos over its allies declined, and Sparta 

3 



24 OLYMPIAN GAMES [chap 

began to rank instead of Argos as the first State in 
the Peloponnesus. 

7. Olympian Festival. — In the west of Pelopon- 
nesus there was an ancient sanctuary of Zeus at 
Olympia, on the river Alpheus. Eighteen towns united 
to offer sacrifice there, and a great iestival was held 
once in four years. The towns of Ehs and Pisa dis- 
puted for the management of the festival : Sparta took 
the part of Elis, and gave EHs the management. Now 
this was something more than a common alHance 
between two States ; for the Spartans wished to 
wake the Olympian festival a great religious gathering 
for the whole of Greece, in order that Sparta, as the 
protector of the festival, might be acknowledged the 
leading State in Greece. Everything was done to 
make the festival as attractive as possible. Races and 
athletic sports were established, at which all Greeks 
might compete ; and heralds were sent all over 
Greece announcing when the festival was to be held, 
and inviting all Greeks to contend in the games 
(.iywi'tc). At first there was only a foot-race : boxing 
and wresding matches and other trials of strength were 
afterwards added, as well as horse races and chariot- 
races. After a time the roads through other States 
that led towards Olympia were protected for some 
days before and after the festival, in order that 
people might go and return in safety ; and at last 
the whole month of the festival was observed as a 
time of peace all over Greece. Thus the Olympian 
games, and the rules connected with them, helped to 
make the Greeks feel that they were a single nation, 
although they were so many independent States. It 
became the custom for every State to send deputies 
to represent it at the games, and to present its offering 
to the god; and each State was anxious that its deputies 
should make a more magnificent show than those of 
the others. Thousands of Greeks came as spectators; 
the plain of Olympia during the games was like a 
great camp. The winners were the happiest men in 



fi.] MESSENIA, 25 

Greece. Though their only prize was a crown oi 
wild olive, it was the greatest distinction that a Greek 
could gain. The most powerful princes sought to 
make a figure at the games, and every State took pride 
in the victory of one of its citizens. There were three 
other festivals in Greece of the same kind, but the 
Olympian was the greatest. 

8. Sparta conquers Messenia. — Immediatel} 
west of the Spartans were the Messenians, a hardy 
Doric race like themselves. Two long and desperate 
wars were waged before Messenia was subdued (b.c. 
750 — 650). Argos, Arkadia and Sikyon, fearing that 
Sparta meant to conquer them all in turn, sent help to 
Messenia ; Corinth and Elis assisted Sparta. Thus 
nearly the whole of Peloponnesus fought on one side 
or the other. The spirit of the Spartans was faiHng, 
when an Athenian poet named Tyrtaeus came among 
them and stirred their hearts with his songs. War- 
like songs and dances were part of the training of the 
Spartans ; they did not read their new poems quietly 
in a book, as we do, but sang them in troops before 
the tent of the king, and on the march to battle. 
The Spartans persevered ; the brave resistance of the 
Messenians was of no avail, and they became a con- 
quered people. The best of their land was taken by 
the Spartans ; on the rest they had to live not as 
Perioeki but as Helots. Yet in their oppression the 
Messenians never ceased to feel that they were a 
distinct nation. Three hundred years later a Theban 
general, Epaminondas, who had overthrown the power 
of Sparta, proclaimed to the Messenians that they were 
again a free people. A city was built, and Messenia 
again ranked among the Grecian States (b.c. 369). 
Put for these three hundred years Messenia had no 
share in all that was done by Greece. 

9. Tegea. — Having conquered Messenia, Sparta 
now possessed the southern part of Peloponnesus 
from sea to sea. It next attacked the States on the 
southern border of Arkadia. But here the Spartans 



26 OLIGARCHIES. [chap. 

found a country and a race that they could not 
subdue. The citizens of Tegea destroyed and cap- 
tured their armies, and made the Spartan prisoners 
labour as slaves in the fields in the chains which they 
had brought for the Tegeans. All hope of conquer- 
ing Arkadia was given up : Sparta gladly accepted 
the Tegeans as her allies (about B.C. 560), and the 
Tegeans were willing to acknowledge Sparta as the 
head of Peloponnesus, and to follow her as their 
leader. At the sources of the river Alpheus a pillar 
was set up with the words of the treaty cut upon it. 
Tegea remained true to Sparta ; and its soldiers, who 
had made the Spartans feel their courage, were allowed 
to serve on the left wing, a place of honour, in the 
army of Sparta and her allies. 

10. North-east Peloponnesus. Oligarchies. 
— Let us now turn to the States in the north-east 
corner of Peloponnesus, namely Sikyon, Corinth, and 
Megara. In all of these, as at Sparta, there was a 
body of Dorians Hving in the midst of the old popu- 
lation; but they had abolished kingly rule, and the 
government belonged to the noble families. The 
name the Greeks gave to this kind of government 
was Oligarchy ox Government by the Few {oXiyoL, ap^t)). 
In almost every State of Greece except Sparta the 
power of the kings grew less and less, and the 
noble families took more of the management of affairs 
into their own hands, till at last they put an end to 
kingly government altogether. These families, or 
e/a/is, were supposed to be the descendants of the 
heroes : they were separated, like a sacred race, from 
the mass of the people; they had worships of their 
own in which the commons had no share (p. i6) ; 
and they alone knew the laws, which were not 
written, but handed down, as a kind of sacred know- 
ledge, by word of mouth. They did not feel them- 
selves fellow-citizens of one State with the common 
people, but considered that they made ud the State 
by themselves, and did not acknowledge that any 



£1.] SIKYON, 27 

one outside their body had any rights at all. As a 
rule they owned good estates, while ihe common people 
either worked upon little farms of their own, or made 
their living as labourers, or by trade. Sometimes the 
nobles hved in a distinct district by themselves. 

11. Sikyon. — This was the case at Sikyon ; the 
Dorian nobles lived on the slope of the hills, while 
the common people lived in the plain, along the 
banks of the river Asopus, and on the sea-shore at 
its mouth. The nobles called them jEgialeans, or 
men of the shore, and did not at first allow them to 
serve as soldiers or to act as citizens in any w^ay. But 
after a time, being in great need of soldiers, they 
made the -^gialeans serve, arming them with clubs, 
while they themselves had swords and lances. But 
while the Dorian nobles were living on the produce of 
their lands, the ^gialeans were growing rich by trade 
and industry; and about the year B.C. 676, a rich 
^gialean, named Orthagoras, put himself at the head 
of the common people, and overthrew the government 
of the nobles. Orthagoras made himself master of 
the whole State, and governed it like a king, handing 
over his power to his son after him. The descendants 
of Orthagoras, called the Orthagoridae, were rulers of 
Sikyon _for a hundred years. They took the part of 
the common people, and abolished all the privileges 
of the Dorians. Thus the power of the Dorian 
nobles in Sikyon came to an end, and Sikyon was no 
longer an Oligarchy, but governed by a single man. 

12. Meaning of Tyrannus. — Sovereigns like 
Orthagoras and his descendants were, not, however, 
called kings {/SumXeic), but tyrants {rv^avvoi). The 
Greek word Tvpayrog does not mean a ruler who 
governs tyraiinically in our sense, but a ruler whose 
power is above the laws and conti'ary to the laws. 
Thus Pheidon, a king of Argos, is said to have 
made himself rvpawog — that is, he made himself an 
absolute king, when by the law and custom of Argos 
the king's power was- limited. A king of Persia, 



28 CORINTH. [CHAP. 

however tyrannically he might govern, would not be 
called Tv\iti\vaq — for the law and custom of Persia 
was that the king's power should be almost absolute, 
that is, that he might do almost anything he chose. 
On the other hand the Orthagoridse were all rupawoij 
however wisely and mildly they might govern, because 
their power was not in accordance with the law of 
Sikyon. Therefore, when we use the word tyrant for 
rvpavyoQf we must remember that we are not using it 
in the ordinary English sense. 

13. First Sacred War. — One of the Tyrants of 
Sikyon, named Kleisthenes, was anxious to gain the 
favour of the Oracle of Delphi, and joined with Athens 
and some other States in a war on its behalf. The 
men of Krisa, which lies between Delphi and the 
sea, tried to make everyone pay a tax who passed 
through their town on his way to Delphi. Kleisthenes 
and the allies therefore made war on Krisa and de- 
stroyed it, and declared the land of the Krisaeans 
sacred to the god, so that no one might ever again 
build upon it. This war is called the First Sacred War, 
and it lasted ten years, from B.C. 595 to B.C. 585. 

14. Corinth. — At Corinth governments followed 
in the same order as at Sikyon, — Kings, Oligarchy, 
Tyrants. When the kings ended, the State was 
governed by two hundred noble families called the 
Bacchiadse. Corinth from its position on the isthmus 
was the greatest trading-town in Greece. The roads 
from all parts of Greece met there, and the Corin- 
thians made a tramway across the isthmus, over 
which ships, which were little more than boats in 
those days, were carried from one sea to the other, 
in order to save the dangerous voyage round Cape 
Malea. Thus trade of all kinds came to Corinth 
Ships were built there to suit the tramway, and sold 
to strangers, so that Corinth became the great ship- 
building town of Greece. The first artificial harbour 
of Greece was formed at Lechseum, the north port 
of Corinth ; docks were made round it, and the 



£1.] JCyPSELUS. 29 

Corinthians made one improvement after another in 
their ships, till at last they invented the Trireme 
{tiju'^, iptTfjiov), a vessel with three sets of oars one 
above the other, which became the regular Greek 
ship of war. Everything tended to make the Corin- 
thians a seafanng people; and when troubles arose 
under the government of the Bacchiadse, young nobles 
who were dangerous and discontented at home were 
encouraged to lead out colonies beyond the sea, where 
they would be able to take the lead. The greatest of 
these colonies were Kerkyra, now Corfu, off the coast 
of Epirus, and S3Tacuse in Sicily. (Map, p. 34.) 

15. Kypselus overthrows the Bacchiadse. — 
But though the Bacchiadse wisely encouraged the trade 
of Corinth, and got rid of dangerous men by means of 
colonies, they could not preserve their power. They 
had become few in number; they were hated by the 
people ; and there were other Dorian families as 
noble as the Bacchiadse, whom they kept out from any 
share in the government. One of these nobles mar- 
ried a daughter of a Bacchiad, whom no Bacchiad 
would marry because she was lame. Their son, Kyp- 
selus had to take the rank not of his mother but of 
his father. Despised by the Bacchiadse, [vypselus 
gained the favour of the people, and made himself 
master of the city. The oligarchy was destroyed ; Kyp- 
selus reigned as Tyrant for thirty years (b.c. 655 — 625) 
and left the government to his son Periander. 

16. Periander. — Periander, now forty years old, 
had studied the ways of the despotic kings of Asia, 
and was thought to have gained such skill and craft in 
ruling as no Greek had ever yet possessed. He was 
one of the ^^ Seven Wise Men,^^ and many clever Greek 
sayings about rulers and their subjects were quoted as 
his. Periander intended to be a king in appearance 
as well as in reality. His father Kypselus had lived 
like one of the citizens among the people: Peri- 
ander on the contrary built a palace on the top of 
the great citadel of Corinth, and surrounded himself 



50 PERIANDER. [chap. 

with soldleis and with a court like an eastern 
monarch. He would allow no one to be powerful 
in the State but himself. If any Corinthian had great 
wealth, Periander made him give up a part of it ; 
and out of the money he thus took he made splendid 
gifts to the gods. Periander loved poets and artists ; 
poets lived at his court, and his offerings to the gods 
were noble works of art. He founded Colonies, and 
extended the power of Corinth far along the coast 
between Kerkyra and the mouth of the Corinthian 
Gulf. The trade of Corinth was so great that no 
taxes were needed beyond the harbour-dues. But in 
all his splendour Periander hved in dread of the spirit 
of liberty. The common people and traders, who 
had always been in subjection to kings or oligarchies, 
had no dislike to a despot : it was in the families 
which had hitherto ruled that the spirit of liberty was 
strong. Therefore Periander forbade all meetings in 
which men of high birth might stir up one another 
with the thought of freedom. He abolished the public 
dinners which had come down from old Dorian times, 
and the meeting of youths in the gymnasia ; and he 
tried to make the citizens distrust one another, and 
live wholly with their wives and children. He wished 
that the people over whom he ruled should be his 
submissive servants, like the nations of the east 
(p. 9), not knowing that uncontrolled power turns 
a man into a savage, and that the despot becomes 
the most passionate and miserable of mankind. He 
grew cruel and suspicious. In a fit of anger he 
killed his wife, MeHssa, whom he loved ; then, seized 
with remorse, he made all the women in Corinth 
burn their robes in one great pile, as an offermg 
to the dead. His two sons, who did not know 
how their mother had died, were staying with their 
grandfather, the father of Melissa. When the time 
came to depart, the old man took them aside and 
asked them if they knew the murderer of their mother. 
The elder was dull, and thought no more of it ; 



II.] MEGARA, 31 

but the youriger, Lykophron, sought what it meant, 
and found that it was his father. When they re- 
turned to Corinth, Lykophron would not speak to 
his fadier, nor salute him. Periander drove him 
angrily from the palace ; and when he found out 
what was in Lykophron's mind, he forbade the citizens 
to take him into their houses, or to speak to him, or 
give him food. For days Lykophron wandered silent 
and starving through the public places : then, when 
Periander thought his spirit must be broken, he 
approached him, and bade him come back to the 
palace. But Lykophron only answered scornfully 
that Periander had broken his own law by speaking 
to him. His father now sent him away to Kerkyra, 
and there he remained, as if forgotten, for many years. 
But when old age came upon Periander, and he knew 
that his eldest son was not fit to succeed him, he sent 
his daughter to Kerkyra, to persuade Lykophron to 
come home as his heir. Lykophron told his sister 
that he would never come to Corinth as long as his 
father lived. Then Periander, in despair, offered to 
retire to Kerkyra if Lykophron would reign at Corinth. 
But when the Kerkyraeans heard of this, they feared 
the coming of the old tyrant, and seized and killed 
Lykophron. Thus Periander^s last hopes were de- 
stroyed. He took fierce vengeance on the Kerkyraeans, 
and then died himself, having reigned forty years 
(B.C. 625—585). 

17. Megara. — In Megara, about B.C. 620, Thea- 
genes made himself tyrant, and abohshed the distinction 
between the Dorians and the rest of the population. 
He was, however, driven out, and violent conflicts 
followed between the nobles and the commons. 

18. The good and evil of the Tyrants. — In a 
great number of other States tyrants arose about the 
same time. They began in the Ionic cities in Asia 
Minor, where men were acquainted with the absolute 
governments of eastern countries ; and the reason 
why tyrants arose in 30 many different places, was, 



52 TYRANTS. [chap. 

that in all these places alike the noble families pos- 
3esseQ all the rights in the State, and the common 
people possessed none. The tyrants gained theii 
power by taking up the cause of the commons ; and 
they did good in so far as they broke down that 
narrow system under which the (q\n noble families 
made up the whole State by themselves, and the 
common people were treated as something outside 
the State. Till now the great religious ceremonies 
had belonged only to the noble families -, the com 
mons could take no share in them, and felt that they 
were not like a part of the State. The tyrants, on 
the other hand, made new and splendid festivals for 
the whole people ; and, though the old families 
preserved and took great pride in their own special 
rites, the new worships helped to make the nobles and 
the commons feel that they were fellow-citizens of the 
same State. Thus when the tyrants came to an end, 
and the citizens took things into their own hands, the 
distinction between the noble families and the com- 
mons had become somewhat less, and they had a 
better idea of the State as something that included 
them all. The tyrants also did good to Greece by 
their encouragement of poetry and art. At their 
festivals a multitude of men heard new kinds oi 
poetry and music, which could not spread themselves 
as poetry and music do now by means of printing. 
At the court of a great prince like Periander the 
cleverest men of all kinds were collected from ah 
parts of Greece, so that whatever was best and newest 
everywhere became known to all. and all could profit 
by it. In general the first of each line of tyrants was 
a good ruler, and his successors far inferior to him 
The man who raised himself to power, like Kypseias 
or Orthagoras, was able to do so because some one 
was needed to stand up for the people and break 
down the privileges of the nobles. He gained his 
power by doing a great work in the State, and the 
people put contidence in him. But his successors did 



L] SPARTA AND THE TYRANTS. 33 

1-ot come to the throne by anything thej^ had done 
themselves. They were born princes, and often their 
only desire was to increase their own power. The 
nobles hated and plotted against them. Then, feel- 
ing their danger, and corrupted by power, the tyrants 
often became mere cruel oppressors, and tried to crush 
out all spirit and manliness. The common people 
did not as yet mind being ruled by a despot, for they 
had never had any share of the government under 
the oligarchies, and therefore had not yet come, as 
they afterwards did in many cities, to value liberty 
and hate slavery. 

19. Sparta and the Tyrants. — The action of the 
Peloponnesian tyrants was hateful to Sparta. They 
had broken down the rule of the Dorians in their 
States, and raised the ancient population. Sparta 
feared that the same thing might be attempted in her 
own dominions ; and therefore she put down tyrants, 
both in Peloponnesus and elsewhere, when a chance 
offered. Among others the nephew of Periander was 
driven out by Sparta. Sparta was now acknowledged 
as the leading State in Greece; most of the Pelopon- 
nesian cities were her aUies, and sent troops when 
summoned, the Spartan kings acting as commanders 
of the united army. 

20. Colonies. — During the period of the oli- 
garchies and the tyrannies, owing to the discontent 
and poverty at home, bodies of men emigrated from 
many of the Greek cities, and founded new cities, 
called Colonies (aTrot^Ku), in different parts of the 
Mediterranean Sea, and on the coast of the Black 
Sea. These colonies were often placed at spots where 
a trade had already begun with the natives, and 
were always on the coast, or but a short distance in- 
land. From the beginning the colonies had greater 
freedom than the cities at home ; and as they often 
had a more fertile territory or a better trade than was 
to be had in Greece, many of them became far richer 
and more powerful than the cities by which they had 



MAP OF 7 HE COLONIES. 



[CiiAl 




THE GREEK COLONIES. 



a.] COLONIES. 35 

been founded. A colony was not subject to its 
mother-city, but paid it certain honours and kept up 
a friendly feeling, especially through the worship of 
the same gods. The colonies spread over the coast ot 
South-West Italy and Sicily ; and as the Greeks came 
to trade more and more in the east part of the Medi- 
terranean, they drove out the Phoenician traders, who 
had at first had all the trade to themselves (p. lo). 
The Phoenicians could not resist the Greeks in these 
waters, but they resolved to keep the trade of the west 
part of the Mediterranean in their own hands, and not 
to let the Greeks take that also from them. There- 
fore the Phoenicians founded the warlike colony of 
Karthage on the African coast; and the Karthaginians, 
in alliance with the Etruscans of Italy, prevented the 
Greeks from settling in the west corner of Sicily or in 
Corsica, and from making any important settlements 
on the coast of Spain. If the spread of the Greek 
colonies had not thus been checked by the rise of 
Karthage, nearly the whole coast of the Mediterranean 
might have become Greek. As it was, the coast of 
Sicily, except in the west corner, became like a Greek 
country, the greatest of the colonies being Syracuse 
(p. .29) and Agrigentum. There was frequent war 
between the Sicilian Greeks and the Karthaginians. 
The coast of the south-western part of Italy was 
called Magna Grsecia, from the number and import- 
ance of the Greek colonies there. They were 
scattered along this coast at intervals from Kumse 
to Tarentum, and throve by agriculture, trade, or 
fisheries. North of Kumae, and on the east coast 
jL Italy, there were no settlements. On thse south 
coast of Gaul (France), Massilia (Marseillen) was 
a Greek colony, with others of less importance : on 
the African coast opposite Greece, Kyrene ; and in 
Egypt, Naukratis. Along the south coast of the 
Black Sea there was a line of colonies founded by 
Miletus ; and on its west coast they stretched as 
fiEur north as the Crimea, among savage neighbours, 



36 SLAVERY. [CHAP 

and in a country where the Avinters are exceedingly 
cold. The prosperity of the Black Sea colonies 
depended on the corn trade, which is still the great 
trade of that district. 

In most places where the Greeks settled, the natives 
of the country round them gradually gave up their 
own ways and began to live like Greeks, just as in 
places where the English settle the people begin to 
learn English habits and the EngHsh language. This 
was especially the case in South Italy and in Sicily, 
where the natives were akin to the Greeks by race. 
About B.c, 400, though the coast of Italy was chiefly 
Greek, the native Sikels in the interior were quite a 
distinct people ; but in B.C. 70 the whole island had 
become Greek ; there was not a word except Greek 
to be heard anywhere. 

21. Slavery. — In the Homeric times there were 
not very many slaves ; but as the Greeks grew more 
rich, and took more and more to living in cities, the 
number of slaves increased, and the citizens came to 
depend more on slave-labour. It became a common 
thing for the citizen to live in the town and leave the cul- 
tivation of his farm entirely to his slaves. Traders and 
merchants also employed slaves in their business, and 
there were great differences in the position of slaves. 
A slave might be employed as the clerk or secretary 
of his master, and be more like his friend than his 
servant ; or he might be treated as if he were a mere 
brute beast, and made to pass his life pulling at an 
oar. In reading the history of Greece we must bear 
in mind that we are reading the history of the masters 
only, not of the slaves ; and that all the greatness 
and interest of Greek life belonged only to a part 
of the population. There was another part — the 
slave-population — whose history, if it existed, would 
perhaps be too full of misery and suffering for us 
to bear to read it 



III. J ATHENE 37 

CHAPTER III. 

ATTICA TO B.C. 500. 

1. Kings abolished at Athens. — The inhabit- 
ants of Attica (map, p. 19) belonged to the Ionian branch 
of the Greeks (p. 14). There were originally several 
States in Attica, independent, and often at war with 
one another. Athens was the strongest of these: it did 
not, however, turn the inhabitants of the other States 
into its subjects, as Sparta did in Laconia, but united 
with them, so that Attica became a single State, and 
the noble families of the other States became nobles 
of Athens. This probabl)' took place while Athens was 
still governed by kings, and the Athenians believed it to 
be the work of their hero Theseus. The kingly power 
was abolished very gradually. At first the nobles took 
away the priestly office of the king (p. 11), and called 
him Ai'chon {^ipx^r), Rider^ instead of Basilcus {Jziug), 
which meant Ruler and Priest together; but the office 
of Archon was held for life, and son succeeded father. 
Next they determined that the Archonship should be 
held only for ten years ; and at last, in B.C. (^Z^i^ it was 
made a yearly office, and nine archons were made 
instead of one, so that there might be different men 
to judge and to command the army, instead of one 
man having all kinds of power. 

2. Noble Clans. — The people of Attica were 
divided into three classes, the Eupatrldce or nobles, 
Gcomori, or farmers, and Demiur^i^ or workmen. 
The Eupatrid^e were like a distinct race by them- 
selves, although they were not foreign conqueron 
like the Dorians in the Peloponnesian States. The) 
were clans supposed to be descended from heroes ; 
they had the management of the sacred ceremonies, 
and kept the eiitire government of the State m their 
own hands. Some of the clans were more distin- 
guished than the rest, and the greatest families in 
these took the lead in State affairs. When the history 
of Attica begins, the common people had no share in 



38 ALKM^ONIDM. [chap 

the government. We shall see how the clans came to 
be thought of less importance, and the Athenians gained 
a better idea of what a State and its citizens ought to be. 

3. Laws of Draco. — One of the afflictions of 
the common people was that justice was not done by 
the judges. There were no written laws. The nobles 
handed down precepts of law to one another by word 
of mouth ; but the people complained that the 
archons, who were always nobles, gave judgment ac- 
cording to their own pleasure, and favoured their 
friends. It was therefore agreed that a citizen named 
Draco should draw up a Code of Laws, in order that 
everybody might know what the law was (b.c. 624). 
Draco did not make new laws, but ascertained the 
rules which the judges commonly went by, and wrote 
them down. The punishments in Draco's code 
seemed so severe to the later Greeks, that the word 
Draconian was used to express anything very strict or 
unmerciful ; but in reality the punishments in all 
early laws are very severe (compare Matt. v. ^Z), and 
Draco's were not severer than others. 

4. Kylon. The curse of the Alkmseonidsp, 
Soon after this, one of the nobles named Kylon 
tried to make himself tyrant (b.c. 612). Expecting 
that the common people would join him in over- 
throwing the Eupatridae, he seized upon the Aero- 
poiis, the citadel of Athens. But the people gave 
him no help, and the government surrounded the 
Acropolis with troops. Kylon himself escaped j and 
his followers, when they were nearly dead with hunger, 
took refuge at the altars of the gods, which were on 
the Acropolis. The archon Megakles, who com- 
manded the troops, promised them their lives if they 
would come away : but when they had left the altars 
his soldiers slaughtered them. This was a most impious 
crime against the gods, and the Athenians believed 
that a curse would fall upon their city. They called 
for vengeance upon the whole clan of Megakles, the 
Alkmaeonidae, who were thought to be all polluted by 



III.] SOLON SA VES THE DEBTORS, 39 

his guilt. For years the nobles contended amongst 
themselves whether they should give up the Alk- 
m^onidse, or not; and the common people g^ew 
more and more violent against the government of 
the nobles. At length the Alkm^onidse were per- 
suaded by Solon, a wise Eupatrid, to submit to trial. 
They were found guilty of sacrilege, and banished 
from the city. 

5. Solon saves the Debtors. — Solon was now 
greatly trusted, both by the nobles and the people. 
The nobles saw that if something were not done t(» 
relieve the distress and bankruptcy of the common 
people, a tyrant would arise (p. 32); and therefore 
they gave Solon authority to carry out whatever 
measures he thought best. The great misery of the 
people was debt. The farmers had borrowed mone> 
at very high interest from the wealthy, giving their 
farms in pledge for the payment of the debt. At 
the boundaries of every farm so mortgaged, pillars 
were set up as a witness, with the amount of the 
debt and the name of the lender cut upon them. The 
debt grew greater and greater every year from the 
heavy interest ; the farmer lost all hope of ever being 
able to pay, and was now only like a labourer on the 
farm which had once been really his own. The debtor 
who had no farm, and who could not pay his debt, 
was in still worse case, for he became the actual 
slave of his creditor, and might be sold (comp. 
2 Kings iv. i ; Nehemiah v. 3 — 5). Thus the free 
farmers, the Geomori, were disappearing altogether. 
Some were sold abroad as slaves, others were working 
at home as serfs, or struggling in miserable poverty. 
To save the State, Solon was compelled to take very 
strong measures. He ordered that the common silver 
coins, called drac/wicB, should be made of lighter weight, 
so that 100 new ones should be worth only 73 old 
ones, and that the new drachmae should be accepted 
as if they were equal to the old ones, in payment of 
debts. Thus, a man who owed 100 old drachmae 



|o SOLON'S CONSTirurWN. [CHAi». 

would pay it by loo new drachmae, which were worth 
only 73 old ones, and would really have his debt re- 
duced by 27. Farmers who owed money to the State 
were freed from their debt altogether, and made a 
fresh start. Many persons who had been sold abroad 
as slaves were brought back and set free ; and Solon 
ordered that from henceforth no Athenian should be 
made the slave of another for debt (comp. Nehe- 
miah v. 6 — 13). These measures did great good to 
the farmers ; and Solon's poems tell us how the 
mortgage-pillars disappeared trom the country. 

6. Constitution of Solon. Timocracy. — 
Solon was also given authority to make a nev/ consti- 
tution and new laws for the State. Till now the noble 
clans had been everything. It was Solon who first 
made Athens a State in which a man might take a part 
as citizen without belonging to one of those clans. 
The ancient Homeric assembly of all the people 
(p. 12) had perhaps never died out in Athens, but it 
had never gained any authority. Solon first made this 
assembly {iKKXr]aia) a real part of the State. Hesecurcvd 
to it the election of the archons, the right of passing laws ^ 
and the right of calling magistrates to account for what 
they had done while in office. Every free-born native 
of Attica had a vote in tne assembly, whether he be- 
longed to one of the clans or not. But Solon did 
not intend that anyone who chose should get up in 
the assembly and propose a law : he established a 
council {(DovX))) of 400 to prepare the business that was 
to come before the assembly, and nothing was to be 
proposed in the assembly that had not been agreed 
to by the council. The councillors {povXtwal) were 
to be elected yearly by the people. 

Solon also made a new division of the citizens, 
distinct from the old clan divisions. He divided all 
the natives of Attica into four classes, according to 
the amount of land which they possessed. To the 
richer classes he gave the greatest share in the 
government, but he also required them to pay 



fiL] AREOPAGUS. 41 

heavier taxes, and to do more service for the State. 
Men of the first or richest class alone could hold the 
archonshiiD ; and thus the rich Eupatridae, who best 
understood government, would still be at the head of 
the State. The lowest class could not be members of 
the council or hold any office ; they had only their 
votes in the assembly. They paid no taxes ; and, when 
they were called out as soldiers (p. 15), they had not 
to find themselves arms, whereas the first three classes 
had to provide themselves with a full suit of armour, 
or to serve as cavalry-men on horses of their own. A 
constitution which, like Solon's, gives power in pro- 
portion to wealh, is called a Timoa'cay (rifjiOKparla^ 
Tijjiii, rating, Kpdroc, power). Hitherto birth alone could 
give a man power in Athens : now, though the greatest 
part of the first class would no doubt be Eupatridae, 
any Athenian who possessed a good estate might hold 
the highest offices ; and the whole people, though 
they did not actually take part in the government, had 
some control over it through their electing the archons 
and calling them to account. 

7. Areopagus. — There was a very ancient assem- 
bly of nobles which met on the hill Areopagus, and was 
itself called the Areopagus. It had originally judged in 
cases of murder. Solon gave it more power, and arranged 
that the archons of every year, if approved by the Areo- 
pagus, should become members of the Areopagus for 
the rest of their lives. Thus the Areopagus would 
be composed of the most experienced men among the 
nobles. Solon gave it the right to forbid any law 
to be passed which it should think dangerous to the 
State, and the right to warn or punish citizens who lived 
in a manner unbecoming Athenians, or who brought up 
their children badly. The Areopagus did not take any 
regular part in the government, but was held in great 
reverence, and was the pride of the Eupatridce.^ 

^ The meeting on the Areopagus before which St. Paul spoke 
was probably a mere gathering of citizens with no authority 
(Acts xvii.) 



42 SOLON'S LAWS, [chap. 

8. Solon's Laws. — Solon was also charged to 
draw up a new code of laws for Athens in the place of 
those of Draco. In all countries in very early times 
the family or the clan had an authority over their 
members which now belongs only to the Law of the 
State. The father had great power over his children, 
and could even put them to death (comp. Deu- 
teronomy xxi. 1 8) ; and the property of those who 
had no children went to their clan when they died. 
iSfow Solon thought that the life and liberty of chil- 
dren ought not to depend on the will of their fathers, 
and that the clan ought not to have any claim on 
a man's property at his death. Therefore he made 
a law that the father should not sell or pawn his 
children, and that people without children should 
have the right to leave their property at their death 
to whom they chose. The son was obliged to support 
his father in old age, but not unless his father had 
given him an education. Solon required all citizens 
to take an active part in protecting the State from 
mischief, as there was no army or police to do so 
(p. 15) ; and therefore he punished any citizen who, 
when troubles arose, should not resolutely take one 
side or the other. Solon ended his work by pardon- 
ing all who had brought themselves into disgrace 
during the late troubles ; and the Alkmseonidse returned 
to Athens (b.c. 594). 

9. Nomothetae. — The evils which existed in 
Athens were common in other Greek States j and in 
many of them, just as in Athens, power was given to 
a single man to draw up an entirely new set of Laws, 
which should set the citizens free from their oppres- 
sion and discontent, and enable them to live together 
in concord. These men were called No/not/ietcB {vo^o- 
dtrai), Legislators ; and some of them performed their 
task with great wisdom and success, and really gave a 
new life to their States. More is known, however, 
about the laws of Solon than about the laws of any 
of the other No/nothelce. 



riL] FISISTKATUS. 43 

10. Factions. Pisistratus Tyrant. — In spite 
cf Solon's great improvements, troubles continued 
in Attica. The most powerful of the nobles were at 
enmity ; and, as Attica was a large district for a single 
State, the inhabitants of different parts of it were easily 
stirred up against one another. There were three 
parties, — the men of the plains, the men of the coast, 
and the men of the mountains. The last were the 
poorest and most dissatisfied ; and the cleverest of the 
nobles, Pisistratus, put himself at their head. The 
leader of the men of the coast was Megakles, an 
Alkmasonid, the grandson of the Megakles who had 
killed Kylon's followers. One market-day, when the 
town was full of poor country-people, Pisistratus 
smeared himself with blood, and drove into the 
market-place, declarmg that he had been almost killed 
by his enemies on account of his zeal for the people. 
A friend, with whom Pisistratus had arranged the 
whole plan, proposed to the people that they should 
give Pisistratus a guard of fifty men, armed with 
clubs. Solon in vain warned the people against it ; 
the guard was given, and gradually increased to 400. 
Then, when Pisistratus felt sure of his power, he 
seized the iVcropoHs, and made himself tyrant (b.c. 
560), He was twice driven out by the parties of the 
coast and the plain; but in B.C. 545 he made himself 
tyrant for tlie third time, and thenceforth reigned 
in peace till his death (b.c. 527). Though he sur- 
rounded himself with a foreign guard, he governed 
very gently, and allowed Solon's constitution to 
remiain in force, only providing that the highest 
offices should be held by men of his own family. 
He estabhshed religious festivals in which all the 
people could join : he beautified Athens with temples 
and public buildings : he improved the roads, and 
laid on water by an aqueduct. He also brought living 
poets to Athens, and collected copies of the older 
poetry from all parts of Greece, employing learned 
men to clear it from mistakes and confusions. 



44 HARMODIUS AND ARISTOGITON. [chaj. 

11. Hippias and Hipparchus. — After the death 
of Pisistratus (b.c. 527), his eldest son Hippias suc- 
ceeded him, and governed mildly: but in b.c. 514 
Hipparchus, the brother of Hippias, affronted the 
sister of a young citizen, named Harmodius, and Har- 
modius, with his friend Aristogiton, determined to 
kill both the tyrant and his brother. They succeeded 
in killing Hipparchus, but Hippias saved himself by 
presence of mind, and Harmodius and Aristogiton 
perished. After this Hippias became suspicious and 
cruel, killing and ill-treating the citizens. 

12. End of the Tyranny. — Since the return of 
Pisistratus in B.c. 545 the Alkmseonidse had been in 
exile. Being very wealthy, and wishing to clear 
themselves from their bad name by an act of piety, 
they undertook for a certain sum to rebuild the 
temple of Delphi, which had been burnt down, 
and though the agreement was only for common 
stone, they faced the temple with fine marble. This 
gained them the favour of the oracle ; and as thej 
knew that so long as the family of Pisistratus reigned 
they would never be allowed to return to Athens, they 
bribed the priestess of Delphi, whenever the Spartans 
should send to consult the oracle, to make only this 
answer, " '\thens must be freed." The Spartans, 
finding that, whatever they asked, the god would give 
them no other advice, determined to do as he bade 
them. They sent an army to turn out Hippias ; and 
when this was defeated they sent another under Kleo- 
menes, king of Sparta. The children of Hippias fell 
into the hands of Kleomenes, and in order to recover 
them, Hippias agreed to leave Attica. This was the 
end of the tyranny of the Pisistratidae (b.c. 510). 
The Athenians remembered the last four cruel year? 
of Hippias with horror, and paid honours to the me- 
mory of Harmodius and Aristogiton^ as if it had been 
they who had freed the city. 

13. Constitution of Kleisthenes. Demo- 
cracy. — Now that Hippias was gone, the struggle oi 



III.] KLEISTHENES. 45 

parties began afresh. ]\Iany of the nobles, undei the 
lead of Isagoras, wish-^d to restore the old government 
of the nobles, as it had been before Solon; the Alkmae- 
onidse, headed by Kleisthenes, the son of Megakles, 
took the opposite side. This Kleisthenes was named 
after Kleisthenes, the Tyrant of Sikyon, whose daughter 
Megakles had married. It was he who had bribed 
the priestess of Delphi ; and now, whether out of am- 
bition or real love for Athens, he took up the cause of 
the common people, and gave them more to do with 
the government. 

14. Tribes and Demes. — There was an ancient 
division of the people into four tribes, called the 
Ionic Tribes. Kleisthenes abolished this division, be- 
cause it made the common people look up to the 
nobles of their tribe; and instead of having the 
people divided according to birth, he divided the 
land into a great number of districts or parishes, 
called Demss {oFuJioi), and then made ten new tribes 
by putting into a single tribe the inhabitants of 
several Demes at a distance from one another. 
Thus one of the new tribes would not be anything 
like a clan : the people in it would come from dif 
ferent parts of Attica, and would not be related to one 
another by birth ; and the members of a single clan 
would be in many different tribes. Kleisthenes hoped 
by this means to prevent the great nobles from raising 
parties to support them, and also to put an end to the 
division of the country into districts like those of 
the plain, the coast, and the mountain. 

15. Council. — In Solon's constitution, the council 
of 400 was composed of 100 from each of the four old 
Jouic tribes : Kleisthenes had the council to be elected 
by his ten new tribes, 50 from each, making 500 
councillors in all. He did not interfere with Solon's 
division into classes according to property, or with the 
privileges of the richer classes ; but when he made his 
division into Demes, he included among the citizens 
every man then living in Attica, except slaves, whether 



ij6 STRATEGI, JURIES, OSTRAKISM. [chap. 

born of Attic parents or not. Thus a number of 
traders and settlers, called aliens {fiiroiKoi) received 
Athenian citizenship ; and the people felt more than 
before that they had a real share in the State. The 
members of each clan still kept up their religious 
ceremonies, and a feeling of pride in their clan ; but 
for all purposes of government the people acted to- 
gether in their Demes and new tribes. 

i6. Assembly. — Kleisthenes wished the public as- 
sembly ^lKK\r]aia) to take a greater part in the govern- 
ment than it had under Solon : and since no measure 
could be introduced in the assembly that had not 
been drawn up by the council, Kleisthenes had to 
make the council a more business-like body than 
it had hitherto been. As it is impossible that 500 
people can transact business methodically all together 
he divided the council into committees (ttpvicivelq) 
Each committee was composed of the men elected by 
one of the new tribes, so that no great nobleman 
could hope to get a committee filled with his clans- 
men. The council and the assembly now began to 
take an increasing part in the government. 

17. Strategi. — A new and important office was 
created in connection with the tribes. Each of the 
ten tribes was to choose a Strategus, or General 
{arpciT-qyoi), and the Ten Generals were to hold com- 
mand of the army in turn, each for a day. One of the 
archons, called the Polemarchus {ttoXeijoq, war, cipxo>r), 
commanded with them. By degrees the Strategi gained 
the management of the foreign affairs of the State. 

18. Juries, — About the same time the assembly 
was divided into courts or juries, in order that the 
chief cases might be tried before a jury of citizens 
instead of being decided by the archons or the Areo- 
pagus as before. 

19. Ostrakism. — Kleisthenes saw that all over 
Greece ambitious men had been able to make them 
selves tyrants because the States had no armies 01 
police ready to defend the constitution (p. 15); and 



riL] LOT, 47 

he feared that a tyrant might rise again in Athens. 
Therefore he established a custom called ostrakism^ 
by which the citizens might get rid of a man whom 
they thought likely to make himself tyrant, or to 
throw the State again into violent struggles. First ol 
all the council and the assembly had to decide that 
the State really was in danger; then the citizens 
were summoned to meet on a certain day, and to 
write each upon a ticket (6(TTpaKov) the name of 
any person whom he thought dangerous to the State. 
If the same name was written on 6,000 tickets, that 
person had to go into exile for ten years ; but he 
did not lose his property, and he might return with 
all his rights as a citizen at the end of the ten years. 

20. Lot. — Another device was made either at this 
time or soon afierwards to prevent ambitious men 
from raising parties in the State, and to give a better 
chance to less powerfal men. When the candidates 
for the archonship had given in their names, instead 
of the people voting which of those who had given 
in their names should be archons, they cast lots 
(i:\r].ooQ). Thus the most that an ambitious man could 
do would be to put down his name as a candidate : 
voting being aboHshed, it would be of no use for him to 
collect a party to support him. The most important 
officers of all, however, the Strategi, were never 
chosen by lot; for great mischief might have happened 
if the lot had fallen on a man unfit to be general. 

21. Spartans interfere. — The changes of Kleis- 
thenes gave the people great Power; and the consti- 
tution of Athens now began to be a Democracy^ or 
Government of the People (ErjiioKpaTia, d^j/joc, people^ 
KpdTog,p07oer). instead of a Timocracy (p. 40). Many 
of the nobles, headed by Isagoras, opposed Kleis- 
thenes as strongly as they could ; and when Isagoras 
found that he could not resist the reforms of Kleis- 
thenes, he applied to Kleomenes, king of Sparta, 
for help, saying that Kleisthenes was about to make 
himself tyrant, and that he would be tlie enemy of the 



♦8 KLEOMENES. \cMki 

Dorians, like his grandfather, Kleisthenes of Sikyon 
(p. 33). Kieomenes was a very ambitious king, 
and wished that Sparta should exercise control ovei 
Athens ; therefore, in order to get rid of Kleisthenes, 
he summoned the Athenians to expel the Alkmae- 
onidae, the clan of Kleisthenes, on account of their 
curse (p. 38). Kleisthenes at once left Athens; and 
Kieomenes marched into Athens with a small force, 
and expelled 700 families whom Isagoras pointed 
out to him as dejjtocraiical. He then tried to dissolve 
the council of 500. But the whole people rose in 
arms. The troops of Kieomenes were overpowered 
and driven into the citadel. The Athenians allowed 
them to retire unhurt, but put to death the citizens 
who had joined them. Kieomenes now summoned 
the Peloponnesian allies of Sparta, and invaded Attica, 
determining to make Isagoras tyrant, because Isagoras 
was willing to subject Athens to Sparta. He did not 
tell the allies what his purpose was ; but when they 
reached Eleusis in Attica, the allies discovered it, 
and refused to go any further, so that the army broke 
up. Kieomenes had also persuaded the Thebans and 
the citizens of Chalkis, in Euboea, to declare war on 
Athens. When the Athenians saw the army of Kieo- 
menes break up, they marched against the Thebans, 
and found them on the shore of Euripus (map, p. 19) 
waiting for the Chalkidians. The Athenians attacked 
and defeated the Theban army, and the moment the 
battle was over they crossed the Euripus, and won so 
complete a victory over the Chalkidians on the same 
day, that the whole state of Chalkis was at their mercy. 
They took the land of the Chalkidian nobles, and 
settled 4,000 Athenian farmers upon it. The Spartans 
were now more jealous then ever of Athens. They 
discovered that the priestess of Delphi had been 
bribed to make them expel Hippias, and they deter- 
mined to humble Athens and restore Hippias. But 
after what had happened in the last campaign they 
dared not conceal their object from the allies. There 



tv.] IONIC COLONIES. 49 

fore they summoned deputies from all parts of Pelo- 
ponnesus, and tried to persuade them to join in 
restoring Hippias. But the Corinthian deputy Sosikles 
reproached the Spartans, who had ahvays been the 
enemies of tyrants, with the change in their conduct, 
and reminded them of what Corinth had suffered from 
Periander. The assembly applauded Sosikles : the 
Spartans saw that they could do nothing, and gave up 
the business. 

Thus the Athenians had upheld their liberties and 
gained two brilliant victories over the Thebans and 
the Chalkidians who would have helped to restore the 
tyranny. The spirit of the citizens rose high. The 
changes of Kleisthenes had abated the rivalries of the 
rich, and the poor saw that they had a share in the 
State, and felt no wish to have the tyrants back. 
Athens was more at one with herself than she had 
ever been before. In the coming Persian wars the 
Athenians held together in spite of traitors ; and both 
rich and poor did their duty when the time came. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE IONIC REVOLT AND PERSIAN WARS. 

I. The lonicColonies conquered by Lydia. — 

The Greek colonies in Asia Minor were all coast 
towns, and did not try to conquer the interior of the 
country. Nor did the kings of the inland countries, 
such as Phrygia and Lydia (map, p. 10), at first attack 
the Greek settlers, but allowed them to keep possession 
of the coast in peace ; and they grew rich and pros- 
perous long before the cities of European Greece 
(p. 33). The most important colonies were the Ionic. 
They were twelve independent cities ; and though they 
had a common religious festival, and felt themselves 
to be a distinct body from the Dorians and yEolians, 
they did not act together ; nor had any city such a 
leadership among them as Sparta had in Peloponnesus. 
So long as no powerful enemy attacked them, the 
lonians did not feel the evils of their disunion : but 



b'O LYDIA, [CHAP. 

about the year b.c. 720 a new line of kings arose 
in Lydia, who determined to make Lydia a great 
empire, and to conquer all the coast. These kings 
made war upon the Ionian cities one after another ; 
and at last, about B.C. 550, King Croesus made him- 
self master of them all. But Croesus had no wish to 
injure or destroy any Greek city. He wished only to 
make them a part of his empire. The Lydian kings 
had come to understand and like the ways of the 
Greeks ; they consulted the Greek oracles and sent 
presents to the temples, and, even when at war, they 
respected the holy places of the Greeks. Croesus 
only required the cities to pay him a moderate tribute, 
and to acknowledge him as sovereign ; in all other 
respects he allowed them to manage their own affairs. 
He was fond of everything Greek; he welcomed Greek 
artists and travellers to his court \ and if the empire 
of Lydia had continued, Greek habits would perhaps 
have soon spread over Asia Minor. 

But Lydia was about to be overthrown by a real 
Asiatic monarchy, which hated and despised Greek 
ways : and in order to understand the events that 
were now coming, we must turn away from Greece 
for a moment, and go far back into the history 
of the Asiatic nations. 

2. Nineveh. — Before B.C. 1000 the kings of 
Nineveh had conquered the neighbouring nations 
about the Euphrates, and had made Assyria a great 
empire. In the height of its power i^ssyria ruled as 
far as Lydia on the west, and on the east perhaps 
as far as the river Indus (first map). But about B.C. 
750 Babylon and Media revolted, and made them- 
selves independent kingdoms. 

It was after this, while Nineveh and Babylon were 
distinct kingdoms, that the Jews were carried into 
captivity, Israel by the King of Assyria (2 Kings xvii. 
6), Judah by the King of Babylon (2 Kings xxv.). 

3. Medes. — The Medes, who had revolted from 
Nineveh, were a brave people living in the highlands 



iv.j PERSIANS. 51 

east of the Euphrates ; and they united the neigh- 
bouring mountain-tribes under their rule, including 
the Persians to the south. The fourth king of Media, 
Kyaxares, allied himself with Nabonassar, king of 
Babylon, against Nineveh ; and in B.C. 606 they took 
the great city and utterly destroyed it (Nahum iii.). 
As the Medes were eager for still further conquests, 
and did not dare to attack Babylon itself, they had 
to turn towards Asia Minor, and there they con- 
quered everything until they met the Lydians. The 
Lydian and Median armies were drawn up for battle, 
when a sudden darkness came over the earth through 
an eclipse of the sun. They took this for a sign, 
and made peace, agreeing that the river Halys should 
be the boundary between the Lydian and Median 
empires (b.c. 585). Croesus, therefore, in B.C. 550, 
was ruling over the country between the ^Egsean Sea 
and the Halys. 

4. Persians. — Soon after the conquests of the 
Medes had stopped, the Persian nation under Cyrus 
rose against the Medes, and put themselves at the 
head of the great Median empire (b.c. 559). Croesus 
knew that the Persians would begin to conquer 
afresh, and therefore he prepared for war. He made 
alliance with Belshazzar, king of Babylon, and with 
Amasis, king of Egypt, and sent to the Delphic oracle 
to ask whether he should declare war on Cyrus. The 
oracle made an ingenious answer, and bade Croesus 
ally himself with Sparta. Sparta promised him help : 
but without waiting for this, Croesus invaded Kappa- 
dokia, and fought a drawn battle with Cyrus (b.c. 547). 
Then he retired to Sardis, the capital of Tydia, and 
sent word to all his allies to have their troops at Sardis 
at the end of five months. But Cyrus was more ready 
than Croesus supposed. He marched straight upon 
Sardis, defeated Croesus, and took the city before help 
could arrive. All Lydia submitted to the conqueror, 
and the Ionic coast-cities offered to submit, if Cyrus 
would continue the privileges which Croesus had 



52 IONIA CONQUERED, [chap. 

granted them. Cyrus refused ; and. the cities had tc 
decide whether they would submit to the Persian on 
his own terms or fight for their Uberty. They deter- 
mined to fight, and sent to Sparta to ask for help. 
Sparta gave them none. The time for submission 
was past, and the towns were besieged one after 
another by Harpagus, the general of Cyrus. 

5. War in Ionia. — Never had the Greeks seen 
such a terrible enemy as the Persians, w^ho now at- 
tacked them. In the Lydian wars they had seen a 
fine cavalry, but the Persians had new troops and 
contrivances of every kind. Their archers shot the 
defenders of the walls. They brought up machines 
for regular sieges ; they surrounded the towns with 
trenches, that no one might get in or out ; they built 
up mounds against the walls, or threw the walls down 
by undermining them. The Lydians had spared holy 
places ; but the Persians, like the armies of Mohammed 
in later times, were believers in one God, and hated 
all the works of idolaters : and all through their 
wars they exasperated the Greeks by destroying their 
temples. The lonians saw that all was lost ; and 
some of them showed a noble love of liberty by 
abandoning their homes rather than submit to the 
conqueror. Many of the citizens of Teos sailed 
away to Thrace, and founded Abdera : the citizens of 
Phoksea, having made a day's truce with the army 
besieging them, employed the time in putting their 
wives and children on board ship, and then sailed 
away, leaving an empty city to the Persians. After a 
time some of them fell home-sick and returned ; the 
rest, after many adventures, settled at Elea, m the south 
of Italy (p. 35). The other towns were all reduced by 
the Persians, and, when once conquered, they were not 
badly treated. But though their prosperity continued 
for the moment, their wisest citizen, Bias of Priene. 
told them that they were now at the mt-rcy of Persia, 
and that it was the want of union which had cost them 
their liberty. He tried to persuade them, while they 



ivj DARIUS. 53 

still had their ships, to follow the example of the 
Phokaeans, — to sail away to Sardinia, and there to 
found one great city in common. But the other 
Ionian cities had not the spirit of the Phokseans; 
they thought that their trade and wealth might be as 
great as ever, although they were subject to the Per- 
sians, and they refused to follow the advice of Bias. 

6. Persian Empire becomes a Naval Power. 
The whole coast of Asia Minor was reduced by 
Harpagus, and the islands of Chios and Lesbos sub- 
mitted, although the Persians had as yet no fleet 
to reach them with (about B.C. 540). While Harpagus 
was conquering the Greeks. Cyrus himself besieged 
and took Babylon (Isaiah xlv.; Jerem. 11.). It was 
now that the Jews were allowed to return to Judaea 
(Ezrai.). When Cyrus was dead (b.c. 525), Phoenicia 
submitted to his son Kambyses, so that the Persians 
could now compel two maritime nations, the Phoeni- 
cians and the lonians, to supply them with a fleet, 
and could therefore think of making conquests be- 
yond the seas. Kambyses added Egypt and Cyprus 
to the Persian empire, and died in B.C. 522. 

7. Darius sets the Empire in order. — After 
Kambyses, an impostor was set up as king of Persia, 
pretending that he was Smerdis, the younger son of 
Cyrus, who had really been put to death by Kam- 
byses. He was discovered at the end of eight months, 
and killed, and Darius, a kinsman of Cyrus, was 
made king (b.c. ^21). Darius was a wise ruler. When 
he came to the throne a great part of the empire was 
in revolt, and he saw that if it was to be held together 
there must be a more regular government. There- 
fore he divided the empire into twenty provinces, 
called Sah'iipies, and had all the land in the empire 
measured, that he might fix the tax that each satrapy 
was to pay yearly. He made Susa in Media the centre 
of government (Esther L I, 2), and laid out roads 
from Susa to all parts of the empire, and made 
arrangements all along these roads for taking people 



54 SCYTHIAN EXPEDITION, [chap. 

engaged on the king's business quickly from one 
place to another. Coins called Dariks were struck, 
which passed current everywhere. Thus the countries 
from the Indus to the ^gsean Sea were now governed 
on one system, and Darius knew what was going on 
in the most distant parts of the empire. In the con- 
quered countries any native government that seemed 
likely to work well and submissively was maintained 
under the Satiap or Persian governor of the province. 
Thus in Judaea Zerubbabel and Joshua governed 
under the satrap of Syria (Haggai i.) ; and in Ionia 
Darius saw that the rule of tyrants, which was common 
there, would be likely to keep the cities in obedience 
to Persia. Therefore he gave his protection to a 
tyrant in each of the cities. 

8. Scythian Expedition. — When Darius had put 
the empire in order, he made an expedition against the 
Scythians in Europe, north of the Danube (b.c. 510); 
and now it was seen how important the conquest of 
Ionia had been to Persia ; for Darius had the Ionian 
tyrants to raise a fleet of 600 ships, and join him 
in the expedition. His army marched to the shore 
of the Bosporus, one of the straits that divide Europe 
from Asia. There a bridge of boats had been made 
ready by Mandrokles, an engineer of Samos, and 
the Persian army marched over it into Europe. From 
the Bosporus, they marched northward, through 
Thrace, till they came to the river Danube. Mean- 
time the Ionian fleet, under the command of the 
tyrants, had sailed from the Bosporus to the mouth 
of the Danube, and had made a bridge of boats 
across the river some way inland. Darius crossed 
over this bridge into Scythia with his army, and com- 
manded the tyrants to remain at the bridge and 
keep guard over it for two months. But at the end of 
two months Darius did not return. Instead of 
meeting the Persian army and fighting a battle, the 
Scythians, who were a wandering people without fixed 
homes, had fallen back before their invaders, so as to 



IV.] HISTI^EUS. 55 

allure them further and further into the country ; and 
the Greeks heard that Darius and his army had lost 
their way in the plains, and were now retreating 
towards the Danube, attacked by Scythian bowmen, and 
in miserable plight. When this news came, one of the 
tyrants, Miltiades, ruler of the Thracian Chersonesus, 
an Athenian by birth, proposed to the other tyrants 
that they should destroy the bridge, and leave Darius 
and his army to perish by famine in Scythia. But 
Histiaeus, the tyrant of Miletus, reminded the tyrants 
that it was the Persians who kept them on their thrones, 
and that if the Persian empire were destroyed they 
would be driven out of the cities by the people. There- 
fore the tyrants refused to break down the bridge, and 
the counsel of Histiaeus saved Darius and his army. 

9. Persian Empire extended as far as Thes- 
saly. — Darius returned to Sardis in safety, and left 
Megabazus, a Persian general, with 80,000 men, to 
conquer that part of Thrace which had not yet sub- 
mitted, and to make a regular Satrapy in Europe. 
Megabazus subdued all Thrace, and sent ambassadors 
to Amyntas, king of Macedonia, summoning him to 
acknowledge Darius as his master. Amyntas gave 
earth and water, which was the Persian token of 
submission, so that Macedonia was added to the 
subject states, and the Persian empire now extended, 
•n Europe from the Danube to Mount Olympus, the 
boundary between Macedonia and Thessaly. To 
reward Histiaeus for preserving the bridge, Darius 
gave him the country of Myrkmus in Thrace on the 
river Strymon. And now possessing both Miletus 
and Myrkinus, Histiaeus began to make great plans 
for conquest. But the satrap Megabazus discovered 
his intentions, and warned Darius that Histiaeus was 
preparing to make himself independent : so Darius 
sent for Histiaeus, and under pretence of friendship 
took him to Hve at the court at Susa, allowing 
Aristagoras, the son-in-law of Histi^us, to reign as 
tyrant at Miletus in his stead. 



56 IONIAN REVOLT. [chap. 

10. lonians Revolt. — Aristagoras was just as am- 
bitious as Histiseus, and lie soon saw an opportunit}* 
for extending his power. The nobles of the island 
of Naxos had been driven out by the people, and 
asked Aristagoras for help (b.c. 502). Aristagoras 
thought that if he restored the nobles he would be 
master of the island : but as Naxos was too power- 
ful for him to attack it by himself, he went to 
Artaphernes, the Satrap of his district, and proposed 
that the Persians should help him to conquer Naxos, 
and add not only Naxos but other islands to the 
Persian empire. Artaphernes agreed, and gave Aris- 
tagoras a fleet of two hundred ships. But the Persian 
commander of the fleet quarrelled with Aristagoras, 
and the enterprize failed. Aristagoras now feared the 
anger of Artaphernes, and began to think of revoltmg. 
Just at the same time Histiseus, who wished to be dis- 
missed from Susa, sent Aristagoras word to revolt, 
thinking that he himself would be sent by Darius to 
put down the rebels, and would so regain his liberty. 
Aristagoras assembled the people, proclaimed that he 
would be tyrant no longer, and persuaded the people 
of Miletus and the other cities to revolt from Persia. 
The tyrants were deposed and liberty proclaimed in 
all the cities (b.c. 500). The^olian and Dorian colo- 
nies and the island of Cyprus joined the insurrection. 

11. Athenians burn Sardis. — Knowing the 
great power of the Persians, Aristagoras crossed over 
to Greece to seek for help. The Spartans refused it, 
but Athens immediately sent twenty ships, and Eretria 
in Euboea sent five. Their troops united with the 
revolted lonians, and marched suddenly on Sardis, 
where Artaphernes was, and set fire to the town. But 
the Persian forces gathered : the Greeks could not 
hold Sardis, and were attacked and defeated as they 
were retreating to the coast. The Athenians returned 
home, and the whole force of Persia was collected 
agamst the revolted cities. 

I a. Battle of X-ade (B.C. 496). — ^The war was 



tv.) LADE, 57 

long and desperate. The smaller cities were besieged 
first, and made stubborn resistance. Four years had 
passed before the Persians collected their forces by 
land and by sea to blockade Miletus, the greatest of 
them all. Then all the cities that were still untaken 
held council together ; and as they could not beat off 
the besieging army by land, they resolved to embark 
all their troops on ships, and try to keep the Persians 
from surrounding Miletus by sea also. Altogether 
they mustered 353 ships. The fleet was stationed off 
the island of Lade in front of Miletus (map, p. 10). 
Then the Persians brought up the navy of Phoenicia, 
600 ships : and when the hearts of the Greeks sank at 
the number of the enemy, a brave Phokgean, named 
Dionysius, promised them certain victory if they 
would do what he should tell them. The Ionian^ 
agreed ; and for seven days Dionysius made them 
practise for the battle from morning till night. But 
the lonians were a pleasure-loving race, and were not 
used to discipline and obedience. On the eighth day 
they lost all patience, and left the ships, and made 
themselves comfortable under the shade in the island. 
In the meantime, by order of the Persian generals, the 
former tyrants were trying to persuade the leaders 
of their cities to desert when the battle should be 
fought, under promise of pardon from Persia ; and 
the Persians, trusting that the tyrants had succeeded 
ordered the Phoenician fleet to attack. The Greeks 
were again on board their ships. And now, when the 
Greek and the Phoenician navies fronted one another 
in order of battle, and the last great struggle for the 
freedom of Ionia was at hand, a shameful sight was 
seen. Before a blow was struck, forty nine out of the 
sixty ships of Samos sailed away. The Lesbians fol- 
lowed, and after them many others. The crews ot 
Miletus and Chios had to fight the whole Phcenician 
fleet almost alone ; Dionysius was one of the few who 
did not desert them. They fought with noble bravery, 
but in vain. The battle of Lade was the death-blow 



58 VENGEANCE OF THE PERSIANS. [chap. 

to Ionia ; and the disgrace was as great as the ruin. 
It showed to all the world how incapable the loniana 
were of making any sacrifice for their common cause, 
and how destitute of the sense of honour and duty. 

13. Vengeance of the Persians.— Soon after 
the battle of Lade, Miletus was taken by storm (b.c. 
495), and the Persians took terrible vengeance for the 
burning of Sardis. They killed most of the men; the 
women and children were carried into captivity; the 
holy places burnt to the ground. 

After Miletus the Persians took all the cities on 
the coast, and in the neighbouring islands, and in the 
Thracian Chersonese. Everywhere they carried fire 
and the sword : still there cannot have been the 
wholesale slaughter which the Greeks represent, for 
the cities were soon again populous and thriving. 

14. First Persian Expedition against 
Greece (B.C. 493). — Darius now intended to punish 
Athens and Eretria for their share in burning Sardis. 
A Persian army, commanded by Mardonius, crossed 
the Hellespont, and marched towards Greece along the 
coast of Thrace, the fleet accompanying it. But when 
the fleet was sailing round the promontory of Mount 
Athos, a hurricane arose and destroyed 300 ships with 
20,000 men. At the same time theThracians attacked 
Mardonius, and he turned back in shame to Asia. 

15. Second Expedition (B.C. 490). — Then 
Darius assembled a new army and anew fleet; but 
before invading Greece he sent envoys to the islands 
to demand earth and water, in token of submission. 
Most of them gave it, including the powerful island 
of ^gina, which was at war with Athens, and would 
gladly have seen Athens ruined. In B.C. 490 the 
fleet of Darius sailed into the ^gsean, Avith an army on 
board under the command of Datic and Artaphernes, 
and landed them first at Naxos, which had refused to 
submit. Naxos had defended itself successfully against 
the fleet of Artaphernes in B.C. 505 (p. 56); but the 
bravest men were terrified by the destruction of Ionia, 



IV.] MARATHON. 59 

and the Naxians fleH from their city into the moun 
tains. The Pers aS utterly destroyed the town with 
all its sanctuaries. Then they sailed to Euboea, and 
besieged Eretria. On the sixth day the gates were 
'opened by traitors. The Persians razed the city to 
the ground, and sent most of the citizens into Asia 
in chains. 

16. Marathon (B.C. 490). — From Eretria the Per^ 
sians crossed the Euripus, and landed on the plain of 
Marathon, twenty-two miles from Athens. The ruin 
of the Athenians was certain if they waited for 
their town to be besieged : nothing but a victory 
in the field could save them from slaughter and 
captivity. They marched out, 9,000 heavy armed men 
(p. 41), under the command of the Polemarch and the 
ten Strategi (p. 46), and encamped on the .hills over- 
looking the plain of Marathon. The army of the 
Persians that had wrought such ruin upon Ionia, the 
army which no Greeks had ever resisted with success^ 
lay below them on the plain between the mountains 
and the sea. Sparta had promised help, but delayed 
sending it, and the Athenians were alone in their 
desperate peril. At this moment the little army of 
the citizens of Platsea, only a thousand in all, who had 
lately had protection given them by the Athenians, 
came to share their fate. Such courage and reso- 
lution filled the Athenians with admiration, and 
were never forgotten. Still the whole number of the 
army was only 10,000 ; and five of the generals 
thought that they ought to wait till help came from 
Sparta. The leader of the other five was Miltiades, 
(p. 55), who, after escaping from the Persians, had 
been elected Strategus in Athens. Miltiades knew 
that there were traitors among the citizens, and feared 
that they would break up the army if fighting were 
delayed Therefore, though the Persians were ten 
times as numerous, he urged immediate battle : and 
when the votes of the ten Strategi were equally 
divided, the Polemarch Kallimachus gave his casting 



6o MARATHON, [chap 

vote for battle. The generals gave up each his own 
day's command (p. 46) to Miltiades ; and Miltiades, 
when the right time had come, drew up the army in 
line for battle. After the generals had addressed their 
tribesmen the battle signal was given, and the whole 
army, raising the battle-cry, charged down the hill 
upon the Persians. In the struggle the centre of 
the Greek line was driven back ; but the two ends 
carried everything before them, and turned and 
attacked the Persians in the centre. The Persians 
gave way, and fled for refuge to their ships, or were 
driven into the marshes by the shore. Six thousand 
Persians, and no more than 192 Athenians, fell in the 
battle. Either before or immediately after the battle 
a bright shield was seen raised on a mountain by 
Athenian traitors, as a signal to the Persians that there 
were no troops in the city. Miltiades instantly 
marched back to Athens. Soon after he reached it 
the Persian fleet approached, expecting to find Athens 
widiout troops. When they saw the men who had just 
fought at Marathon drawn up on the beach ready to 
fight them again, they sailed away, and the whole 
armament returned to Asia. 

The battle of Marathon was glorious to Athens and 
Platsea ; and though the number of Greeks who 
fought and died in it was small, it is one of the most 
important battles in all history : for, had it not been 
won, Athens must have been captured by Persia ; and 
the rest of Greece would probably have submitted. 
Greece would have become a Persian province ; and 
iie history of Europe, instead of being the history 
of free and progressing nations, might have been like 
the history of Asia, — a history of oppressors and 
their slaves. It was an act of splendid courage in 
the Athenians to face that army which had ovei 
thrown Lydia, Babylon, and Ionia : and it shows 
the insight of lUiltiades into the difterences between 
soldieis, that, after seeing the Ionian Greeks one after 
another overthrown by Persia, he should yet have 



IV.] MILTJADES, 61 

been convinced that the 10,000 Athenians would be 
a match for the v/hole Persian army. 

On the day after the battle 2,000 Spartans reached 
Athens. They had delayed marching until the full 
moon, because this was their religious custom. But 
had Sparta really meant to defend Athens, it would 
have sent more than 2,000 men, whether they waited 
tor the full moon or not. Thus Sparta lost the glory 
of a share in the first victory over Persia. 

17. Miltiades. — Greece was saved; but the general 
who had saved it perished miserably. Miltiades had 
been twenty years a tyrant, and he now wished to em- 
ploy the forces of Athens like a tyrant instead of a 
citizen-general. He persuaded the people to give 
him command of a fleet, without telling them for what 
purpose ; and out of private enmity he attacked the 
island of Paros. But the Parians defended themselves 
bravely, and Miltiades found that he could do nothing. 
At last a priestess, who wished to betray the city, sent 
word to Miltiades to come secretly to her temple. 
Miltiades tried to climb into the temple by night, but 
fell and wounded his thigh. And now, after twenty- 
six days' command, he returned to Athens with nothing 
done. He v/as accused of deceiving the people, and 
sentenced to pay a heavy fine. His property was in 
the hands of the Persians \ he could pay nothing. 
His wound mortified, and he died in dishonour. 

18. Themistokles. — After the batde of Marathon 
the Persians retreated from Greece, and Athens was 
left to itself. Its two leading citizens were now 
Themistokles and Aristides. Themistokles was the 
cleverest man of his time. He was wonderfully quick 
and wise in foreseeing what was going to happen ; and 
when he had determined to have anything done, no 
difficulty was so great but that he could find some 
ingenious plan for making things go as he wished. 
While the other Athenians were satisfied with having 
beaten the Persians at Marathon, Themistokles felt 
sure that Persia would attack Greece again. He 



62 



ATHENIANS BUILD A FLEET. 



[CHAP. 



thought with himself how Athens might be made as 
powerful as possible : and as he looked en the jutting 
coast of Piraeus, four miles from Athens, with its bays 
lying as if they had been made for harbours, and thought 
of the greatness of the Ionic maritime towns before 
their destruction, and of the multitude of islands and 
coast towns in Greece which might all be controlled 
by one strong fleet, he saw that if Athens would take 
to the sea it would be possible to give her such a 
power as had never been imagined. He saw that 
Athens might bring a far greater force against Persia 




SAIAMIS AND THE COAST OF ATTICA. 

by sea than she ever could by land ; and that the leader- 
ship of Greece would pass from inland Sparta and its 
army to a State which could control the coasts and 
islands with a fleet. 

19. Athenians build a Fleet. — Fortunately for 
the plans of Themistokles there was constant war 
between Athens and the island of y95gina (p. 58). The 
Athenians could not overcome ^.gina without a power- 
ful navy ; and this made them hsten to the counsel of 
Tnemistokles, and agree to spend the produce of the 
public silver mines in building 200 triremes. But 
Themistokles knew that the fleet could never thrive 



w.] ARISTIDES. . 61 

unless a great maritime business and population arose. 
He thereTore did everytliing to attract the people to a 
seafaring life, and to encourage trade by sea. Hitherto 
the Athenian ships had put in at the east corner of 
the open bay of Phalerun. Now the safe inclosed 
bays around Piraeus were made into good harbours, 
and a busy trading town, called Piraeus, grew up 
on their shore. In B.C. 490 Athens had hardly any 
navy ; in B.C. 480 she had a fleet of 200 triremes, 
the most powerful fleet in Greece. 

20. Aristides. — Aristides disapproved of the whole 
plan of Themistokles. He thought that if Athens had 
beaten the Persians once by land she might beat them 
by land again. The soldiers who had fought at Mara- 
thon were all owners of land (p. 41) : but, if a fleet 
were formed, it would be chiefly manned by poor 
people who had no land ; and Aristides knew that 
whoever had the chief share in fighting on behalf of 
Athens would also have the chief share in its govern- 
ment. If the strength of Athens lay in its fleet, the 
poor people who served in the fleet would get the 
upper hand in the State. A maritime and trading 
population would grow up, fond of adventure and 
change ; and the good old ways, he thought, would 
be forsaken. In wishing Athens not to have a fleet, 
Aristides was certainly wrong ; but it was not on 
account of his opinions that he had such credit, but 
on account of the nobleness of his character. He 
was a perfectly honourable man. Whoever else took 
bribes, or betrayed his cause (pp. dZ, 74), it was 
known that Aristides would never be anything but 
true and just ; and this, as we shall see, gave him real 
power, not only in Athens, but over all Greece, when 
the need for a just man was felt. At present such 
was the strife between the parties of Aristides and 
Themistokles that an ostrakism (p. 46) had to be 
held. Aristides was ostrakised, and Themistokles was 
left free to carry out his plans. 

21. Xerxes invades Greece (B.C. 480). — King 



&I • XERXES INVADES GREECE. [char 

Darius died in bx. 485, and his successor, Xerxes^ 
collected an enormous force for invading Greece. In 
every country from Asia Minor to the river Indus 
troops were levied. Two bridges of boats were made 
over the Hellespont A fleet of 1,200 war-ships and 
3,000 carrying ships assembled on the coast of Ionia 
and Phoenicia. Stores of food were collected in the 
towns along the coast of Thrace; and a canal was 
cut through the promontory of Mount Athos, that the 
fleet might not again have to make the dangerous 
passage round it (p. 58). The place of meeting for 
the land forces was Kritalla in Kappadokia. Ther^, 
in B.C. 481, the troops of forty-six nations were as- 
sembled, perhaps a million in number, all dressed 
and armed in the manner of their native countries. 
Xerxes put himself at their head, and led them to 
Sardis for the winter. In the spring of B.C. 480 the 
whole host marched to the Hellespont, where the fleet 
was waiting for them. On the heights of Abydos a 
throne of white marble was erected ; from this throne 
Xerxes looked over sea and land covered with his 
troops, and gave the order to cross into Europe. For 
seven days and nights his hosts were marching over 
the bridge. Then from the Hellespont the army 
marched along the coast of Thrace, and met the fleet 
again at Doriskus. Here the ships were drawn up on 
shore, and the crews and the land army were numbered 
together. From Doriskus the army and fleet passed 
on safely to the gulf of Therma. 

22. Congress at Isthmus of Corinth. — In the 
autumn of B.C. 481, Sparta and Athens had summoned 
the Greek states to a Congress at the Isthmus of 
Corinth, to decide upon the best means of defending 
Greece. Deputies came from all the great Pelopon- 
nesian States except Argos and Achsea, and from 
Athens, Thespise, Platgea, and Thessaly. ^gina was 
reconciled to Athens, and joined the common cause. 
Argos, out of hatred to Sparta, and Thebes, out of 
hatred to Athens, favoured the Persians ; Achaea had 



nr.] TEMPE. 65 

never acted with Sparta. The Congress sent envoys 
to the colonies to ask them to join in the defence of 
Greece, but in vain. Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, who 
had a greater army than any Greek State, refused 
to help unless he were given the chief command : 
Crete would do nothing : Kerkyra promised to send 
ships, but did not mean that they should arrive in 
time. Thus it was but a small part of Greece that had 
the will and the courage to resist the Persians : and 
when we speak of the glory which Greece won by 
this war, we must remember that the greater part 
of Greece had no share in it w^hatever, but, on the 
contrary, did nothing for the cause of Greece. The 
credit of the war belongs to Athens, the Pelopon- 
nesian league, the Uttle Boeotian towns of Platsea and 
Thespise, and a very few other States. Athens, 
though it contributed so large a fleet, honourably 
ahowed Sparta to command both by land and sea, in 
order that there might be no division. The aUies took 
an oath to resist to the last, and, if they should be suc- 
cessful, to make w^ar upon all Greek States that had 
willingly submitted to Persia, and to dedicate a tenth 
of the whole spoil to the Delphic god. 

23. Tempe. — The Congress had now to decide 
how Greece was to be defended. As the Persians had 
such an immense force, the best plan for the Greeks 
was, not to fight a pitched battle in the open country, 
where they w^ould be surrounded, but to meet the 
Persians in some narrow place, where ten thousand 
men would be as good as half a miUion. Greece is so 
mountainous a country that sometimes the only way 
from one district to another is a single narrow pass ; 
and the Congress believed that the Persians could only 
enter Greece through the narrow valley of Tempe m 
the north of Thessaly. They therefore sent an army 
of 10,000 men to Tempe. But on reaching it, the 
generals found that there was another road by which 
the Persians could get round them, so that it would 
be useless to post the troops at Tempe. They 



66 THERMOPYL/E. [CHAP. 

returned to the isthmus of Corinth, and the Congress 
had to fix on another place. 

24. Thermopylae. — In all Thessaly there was no 
narrow pass which the Persians had to go through ; 
but south of Thessaly, at the head of the Malian Guli 
(map, p. 19), their road ran between the mountains 
and a swamp which stretched to the sea ; and at one 
place the swamp came so near the mountain that there 
was hardly room for the road to run between. This 
is the famous pass of Thermopylae, and here it was 
thought a small army might block the way against any 
number of the enemy. The Spartans weie just now 
celebrating a religious festival at which all their citizens 
had to appear ; therefore only 300 Spartans were sent 
to Thermopyl^, but with them were 1,000 Helots 
or more, and about 3,000 heavy-armed men from other 
Peloponnesian States. The general was Leonidas, 
king of Sparta. On their way through Boeotia they 
were joined by the little army of Thespi^, 700 in 
number, and a body of Phokians and Lokrians met 
them at Thermopylae ; so that there were in all about 
7,000 men. At the same time the fleet was posted at 
Artemisium, at the north end of the Euboean Straits, 
to prevent the Persian fleet getting past and landing 
men behind the Greeks at Thermopylae. The fleet 
numbered 271 ships, and was commanded by Eury- 
biades, a Spartan. 

When Leonidas reached the pass of Thermopylae, 
he found that there was a way over the mountains 
by which a body of Persians might cross and attack 
him from behind. He therefore sent the Phokians 
to defend the mountain-road, and made ready for 
battle himself in the pass. The Persians approached ; 
and for four days they lay before the pass without 
attacking, and were astonished to see the Spartans 
quietly practising gymnastics and combing their long 
hair as they did before a festival. On the fifth day, 
Xerxes ordered an assault, and during the whole of. 
that day and the next the battle continued, without the 



IV.] LEONID AS, 67 

Persians being able to drive back the Gieeks. But 
on the third day after the fighting began, a native of 
the country told Xerxes of the path over the moun- 
tain : and at nightfall a strong Persian force was sent 
CO ascend the path and take the Greeks in the rear. 
In the early morning the Phokians heard a trampling 
through the woods. They were unprepared, and 
abandoned their post, and the Persians marched on 
to descend behind Leonidas. In the course of the 
night Leonidas knew what had happened. He sa-.v 
that if he did not retreat immediately he must be sur- 
rounded and perish ; but the law of Sparta forbade 
the soldier to leave his post, and Leonidas had no fear 
of death. He ordered the other troops to retire while 
there was yet time, but himself, with his 300 Spartans, 
reraamed to die at his post. The other troops de- 
parted, but the 700 Thespians bravely resolved to 
stay and die with Leonidas. And now, before the 
Persians could descend behmd him, Leonidas and his 
1,000 men ilirew themselves upon the host in front. 
Leonidas soon fell, but his soldiers fought on until 
the Persians who had crossed the m.ountain were close 
at hand. Then, ceasing the attack, they took up their 
last position on some rising ground, to defend them- 
selves against the enemy who now surrounded them. 
Here all died, fighting bravely to the last. 

Thus Leonidas and his Spar'ans died at their post, 
and the Thespians died with them. Their heroic and 
voluntary death was not in vain. At a moment when 
the hearts even of the braver Greeks were wavering, 
md men were inclined to forsake the common cause 
in order to save themselves, Leonidas gave a splendid 
example of constancy and self-sacrifice, and showed 
the Greeks how a citizen ought to do his duty. 

25. Fleet at Artemisium. — During the three 
days of the battle of Thermopylae the Greek and Persian 
fleets were also engaged. The Greek fleet had been 
posted at Artemisium to prevent the Persian fleet 
entering the Straits of Euboea, and landing troops 



68 ARTEMISIUM. [CHAP 

behind Leonidas ; but on its approach they were seized 
with a panic, and sailed down the straits to Chalkis, 
where the sea is very narrow. At Chalkis they heard 
that part of the Persian fleet had been destroyed by 
a storm, and they took courage and sailed back to 
Artemisiura. Presently the Persian fleet came in 
sight, and its numbers so terrified the Greeks that they 
again prepared to forsake the post. Upon this the 
Euboeans, seeing that their only hope lay in the Persians 
being kept out of the straits, ofl"ered Themistokles 
thirty talents (7,000/.) if he could get the fleet to 
remain. By giving part of the money to Eurybiades 
and to other commanders, Themistokles persuaded 
them not to retreat. Thus at this great moment the 
chiefs of the fleet cared more for bribes than for duty, 
and were not ashamed to make money out of the 
danger of Greece. 

The Persian admiral, when he saw the Greek fleet 
at Artemisium, sent off 200 of his ships to sail round 
Euboea and inclose the Greeks from the south. When 
they had gone, the Greeks made a very skilful attack 
on the Persians and took thirt)^ vessels. The same 
night a storm arose and entirely destroyed the 200 
ships sailing round Euboea. Next day fifty more 
Athenian ships joined the fleet, and the Greeks again 
attacked the Persians and gained some little advan- 
tage. On the third day the Persians did not wait to be 
attacked, but assailed the Greeks fiercely, and fought 
an even battle. On the morrow the Greeks heard of 
the destruction of the Spartans at Thermopylae. Since 
the army of Xerxes had passed Thermopylae, it was of 
no use for the fleet to remain at Artemisium \ they 
therefore retired southward down the straits, sailed 
round Cape Sunium, the end of Attica, and took up 
their position off the island of Salamis (map, p. 62). 

'26. Athens abandoned and destroyed. — 
From Thermopylae Xerxes marched upon Athens. 
The Spartans, instead of sending an army to defend 
Attica, kept the Peloponnesian forces at the Isthmus 



fV.] ATHENS ABANDONED, 69 

of Corinth ; for they cared little what became of 
A-thens, so long as the Persians were kept out 
of Peloponnesus. Forsaken by their allies, the 
Athenians had no hope of being able to defend 
Athens, and resolved to abandon the town, and to re- 
move their wives and children out of Attica to places 
of safety. The whole population, men, women, and 
children, sorrowfully left their homes, and streamed 
down to the sea-shore, carrying what they could with 
them. The fleet took them over to Salamis, yEgina, 
and Troezene ; and when Xerxes reached Athens, he 
found it silent and deserted. A few poor or desperate 
men alone had refused to depart, and had posted 
themselves behind a wooden fortification on the top 
of the Acropolis, the fortress and sanctuary of Athens. 
And now vengeance was taken for Sardis (p. 56). 
The Persians fired the fortifications, stormed the 
Acropolis, slaughtered its defenders, and burnt every 
holy place to the ground. Athens and its citadel 
were in the hands of the barbarians : its inhabitants 
were scattered, its holy places destroyed. One hope 
alone remained to the Athenians, — the ships which 
Themistokles had persuaded them to build. 

27. Battle of Salamis. — As Xerxes advanced 
from Thermopylae to Athens, his fleet had sailed along 
the coast, and was now anchoring off Athens, in the 
bay of Phalerum. (September, B.C. 480.) The Greek 
fleet lay a few miles off in the strait between Attica 
and Salamis (map, p. 62); more ships had joined 
it, raising the number to 366. Among the Greeks 
everything was in uncertainty. The Peloponnesian 
captains wished to retreat to the isthmus, in order 
to act with the land army. Eurybiades was un- 
decided. Themistokles knew that if the fleet once 
left Salamis it would break up altogether, and was 
resolved, by whatever means, to have the battle 
fought where they were. He argued with Eury- 
biades and the Peloponnesian commanders ; he made 
them hold council after council; he threatened to 



70 SALAMIS. [CHAP. 

deprive them of the 200 Athenian ships if they left 
Salamis ; and at last, when he saw all against him, he 
sent word secretly to Xerxes that the Greeks would 
escape if he did not attack them immediately. Early 
next morning, while it was still dark, the commanders 
were again assembled in council, when Themistokles 
was called out by a stranger. It was the exile Aris- 
tides, who, in the ruin and distress of Athens, had come 
to serve those who had banished him, and had made 
his way through the Persian fleet in the darkness to tell 
the Greek commanders that they were surrounded. 
Aristides was brought in to the council and declared 
it to be true. When day broke, the Greeks saw the 
enemy's ships facing them all along the narrow strait, 
and stretching far away on the right and left, cutdng 
off all escape. Behind the Persian ships the Persian 
army was drawn up along the shore of Attica, and a 
throne was set in their midst, from which Xerxes sur- 
veyed the battle. The Persian fleet advanced, and 
the Greeks, seized with terror, pushed backwards to- 
wards the shore. But there was no possibility of re- 
treat, and they presently gained heart and advanced. 
The fleets closed. Vessel crashed against vessel. In 
single encounters the ships and crews of Greece were 
seen overpowering their antagonists ; and when once 
the Greeks prevailed, the numbers of the Persian ships 
were their ruin. They were jammed together in the 
narrow space. Beaten and disabled ships prevented 
others from coming into action. Two hundred were 
destroyed under the eyes of Xerxes, and the rest, to 
escape ruin, fled out of the straits. By sunset the 
battle was over, and the Greeks prepared to renew the 
fight on the morrow. 

28. Retreat of Xerxes. — But the heart of Xerxes 
sank. Though he had still 800 ships he could bear 
the war no longer. He left 300,000 of his best troops 
in Greece with Mardonius, and himself, with the rest 
of the army, returned to Asia the way he had come. 
Fearing that the Greeks would break down the bridges 



rv. J EE TREA T OF XERXES. 7 1 

over the Hellespont, he sent hiswliole fleetto guard thern 
till his arrival. On the march back through Thrace, 
thousands of his army perished of hunger and disease. 

29. Victory in Sicily. — On the same day that the 
battle of Salamis was fought, another great victory 
was gained by men of Greek race against an invading 
army. Karthage (p. 35) had united with Persia to de- 
stroy Greece ; and an immense Karthaginian army laid 
siege to Himera in the nortli of Sicily. Gelo, the tyrant 
of Syracuse, marched wdth 50,000 men to the relief of 
Himera, and dealt the Karthaginians such a blow that 
Greece was freed from all danger in that quarter. 

30. Battle of Plataea (B.p. 479).— Mardonius 
and his army passed the wmter quietly in Thessaly, for 
the northern Greeks were still obedient to the Persians. 
When summer came he marched into Attica. The 
Athenians had come back to their ruined homes 
after the battle of Salamis, and the city was partly 
rebuilt. They expected help from Sparta on the 
approach of Mardonius, but none came 3 and Athens 
was a second tmie abandoned and destroyed. Ai 
length the Spartans put forth all their strength. They 
summoned the land-forces of all the allies ; and an 
army of 110,000 men marched against Mardonius, 
under Pausanias, the guardian of Leonidas' young son. 
(Sept. B.C. 479.) Mardonius had his head-quarters in. 
Thebes, and the Thebans, out of hatred to Athens, 
served zealously in the Persian army, Pausanias 
marched into Bceotia, and for ten days the armies 
faced one another near Plataea. On the eleventh day 
the Greeks could get no more water. The braver cap 
lains were impatient for battle ; but Pausanias dared 
not attack the Persians where they stood, and gave 
orders at nightfall to fall back on a better position. 
The movement threw the Greek army into disorder, 
and its three divisions were widely separated from one 
another. The next morning Mardonius, seeing that the 
Greeks had retreated, ordered an attack. The Spartans 
andTegeans (p. 26) fronted the main body of the Persian 

7 



72 FLAT^A, [chap. 

army ; the Athenians were at some distance on their left; 
and the third division of the Greeks had retreated 
too far to take part in the battle. The Persians 
advanced to withi.'a bowshot, and, fixing their wooden 
shields Hke a paUsade in front of them, poured flights 
of arrows upon the Spartans. It was the custom of 
the Spartans before beginning a battle to offer sacri- 
fice, and to wait for an omen, or sign from heaven, in 
the offering. Even now, as the arrows fell, Pausanias 
offered sacrifice. The omens were bad, and he dared 
not advance. The Spartans knelt behind their shields, 
but the arrows pierced them, and the bravest men 
died sorrowfully, lamenting not for death but because 
they died without striking a blow for Sparta. In his 
distress Pausanias called on the goddess Hera : while 
he was still praying the Tegeans advanced, and in- 
stantly the omens changed. Then the Spartans threw 
themselves upon the enemy. The palisade went 
down, and the Asiatics, laying aside their bows 
fought desperately with javelins and daggers. But 
•they had no metal armour to defend them ; and the 
Spartans, v/ith their lances fixed and their shields 
touching one another, bore down everything before 
them. The Persians turned and fled to their fortified 
camp. The Spartans assaulted it, but they were 
unskilful in attacking fortifications, and the Persians 
kept them at bay till the Athenians came up victorious 
over the Thebans (p. 7 1). Then the camp was stormed, 
and the miserable crowds who had been driven into it 
were cut to pieces. No victory was ever more complete: 
the Persian army was totally destroyed, and the in- 
vasion at an end. Out of the immense spoil a tenth 
was given to the gods. The prize of valour was ad- 
judged to the PJatseans; they were charged with the duty 
of preserving the tom.bs of the slain ; and Pausanias, 
by solemn oaths, declared their territory, in which the 
battle had been fought, to be sacred ground for ever. 

31. Battle of Mykale. — On the same day that the 
battle of Plataea destroyed the invaders of Greece, 



v.] MYKALB. 73 

a battle on the coast of Asia Minor put an end to 
the rule of Persia in Ionia. The Greek fleet had 
crossed to Asia, and met the Persian fleet at Mykale, 
near Miletus. The Persian admiral would not fight 
by sea : he landed his crew, and hauled his ships 
ashore, and united with a Persian army on the land. 
The Greeks, who were mostly Athenians, were as 
ready to fight by land as by sea ; they attacked the 
enemy on the beach, and not only gained a complete 
victory, but set fire to the Persian ships and destroyed 
them. The lonians, who had been made to serve 
with the Persians, went over to the Greeks during the 
battle j and from that time Ionia was free. 

32. What saved Greece. — Thus the Persians, 
who had conquered so great an empire, were com- 
pletely beaten by a small part of Greece. We must 
allow that this was partly owing to the mistakes of 
the Persian commanders \ and many things in the 
war did little credit to Greece. Many of the 
States submitted too easily to Xerxes ; some were 
on his side from the first : even in those which fought 
the m.ost resolutely there was generally a party 
ready to submit to Persia (p. 60). As a rule the 
Greeks thought too much about themselves and too 
little about the common cause. Sparta, though she 
dealt the death-blow at Platsea, had been slow and 
untrustworthy as the leader of Greece. But a State 
could hardly display greater courage, enterprise, and 
resolution, than Athens did from the beginning to 
the end of the war. It was the energy of Athens, 
and the habit of the Peloponnesian States to act in 
imion under Sparta, that made European Greece so 
much harder to conquer than Ionia. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE EMPIRE OF ATHENS AND THE PELOPONNESIAN 
WAR. 

1. Walls round Athens and Piraeus. — After 
the battle of Platsea the inhabitants of Athens returned 



74 PAUSANIAS. [CHAP 

to their ruined homes, and for the second time rebuih 
the city (p. 71). Instead of rebuilding their old wall, 
however, Themistokles persuaded them to build one 
of much greater circuit, so that, in case of war, the 
country-people might bring their goods and take refuge 
within it. The neighbouring States, especially ^gina 
and Corinth, were jealous of the power of Athens ; 
and when they saw the strong fortification Themis- 
tokles was making, they stirred up the Spartans to 
interfere and put a stop to it But by a trick ot 
Themistokles the Spartans were kept from doing 
anything until the wail had risen high enough to be 
defended. It was then too late for the Spartans to 
mterfere, and they had to conceal their anger. The 
wall round Athens was finished, and a still stronger 
one was built round Pirccus (p. d-^. 

2. Pausanias. — The battle of Mykale had freed 
Ionia, but many places on the coast of Asia Minor 
and Thrace were still held by the Persians. The chief 
of these was Byzantium, now Constantinople. So 
long as Byzantium belonged to the Persians, they could 
send out fleets from its harbour to injure Greek ship- 
ping, and could easily invade Europe again. The 
Greeks therefore laid siege to Byzantium, under the 
command of Pausanias. The city was taken, and 
some kinsmen of Xerxes fell into the hands of the 
Greeks. And now Pausanias formed a treacherous 
plan. In the conquered camp at PlatGea and in By- 
zantium he had seen the splendour of Persian princes ; 
and as he found out more about Persia, he saw how 
(nsignificant Sparta and all the Greek States were in 
.vealth and size when compared with a great eastern 
Ijingdom. He grew discontented, and thought that he 
.TQight make himself a great king like the kings of the 
east. Therefore, when Byzantium was laken, he re- 
leased the kinsmen of Xerxes unharmed, and sent 
Xerxes a letter asking for his daughter in marriage, 
and offering to bring all Greece under the empire of 
Persia. He began to behave as if he were already a 



r.J CONFEDERACY OF DELOS. 75 

Satrap, living in Persian luxury, and insulting the 
Greeks who served under him. A report of his 
treason reached Sparta, and he was summoned home. 
Upon this the lonians serving in the fleet, who had 
been provoked by the insolence of Pausanias, invited 
the Athenian commanders to put themselves at the 
head of the Grecian navy in place of Sparta. The 
xlthenians did so. and when the successor of Pausanias 
arrived from Sparta, he found that nobody would obey 
him, and returned home. 

3. Confederacy of Delos (B.C. 477). — During 
the Persian invasion Sparta had been acknowledged 
as leader of Greece by all the States which fought 
(p. 65); but henceforward there were two great 
Leagues, one headed by Sparta, and one by Athens. 
The Peloponnesian States continued to follow Sparta ; 
the islands and many towns on the coast of Asia Minor 
and Thrace joined the new League under Athens. 
This League was called the Confederacy of Debs, 
because its deputies met at the temple of Apollo in 
the island of Delos, and its treasure was kept there. 
The object of the League was to keep the Persians 
out of the ^gaean Sea. Each city contributed yearly 
a certain number of war-ships with their crews, or 
a certain sum of money j and the man chosen to 
fix what each should contribute was the upright Aris- 
tides, w4io then commanded the Athenian fleet (p. (i^: 
There were from the first two great differences between 
the Spartan and Athenian Leagues. The States in 
alliance with Sparta contributed land troops, those in 
aUiance with Athens contributed ships ; and again, 
Sparta encouraged oligarchical governments every- 
where, Athens encouraged democratical governments. 
Thus in the same city the party of the nobles was often 
in favour of Sparta, the party of the common people 
in favour of Athens. The great mistake in the Con- 
federacy of Delos was that some of the States were 
allowed to contribute money instead of ships and 
men. From this it came about that other States, 



76 THEMISTOKLES. [chap. 

which had originally contributed ships, arranged to 
contribute money instead, in order to avoid the trou- 
ble and danger of naval service. This made them the 
subjects instead of the free allies of Athens. So long 
as they kept up their ships they had the means of de- 
fending themselves if Athens did them wrong; but when 
they sent money instead of ships, they lost all control 
over Athens, and the money became hke a tribute to 
Athens instead of the common property of the League. 
In course of time the meetings of the deputies ceased ; 
the treasure-house was removed from Delos to Athens 
(B.C. 459), and a great part of the money was spent in 
paying the Athenians for attending to public affairs, 
and in making Athens beautiful. This change came 
about gradually ; at first the smaller States had no 
reason to complain of Athens. The war was con- 
tinued against Persia ; the places which Persia still 
held round the ^^gsean Sea were conquered one after 
another; and in B.C. 466, Kimon, the Athenian gene- 
ral, gained a double victory over the Persians by land 
and by sea, at the mouth of the river Eurymedon, 
on the south coast of Asia Minor. The first signs 
of discontent with Athens appeared in this same 
year: Naxos (p. 58) revolted from the League, and 
was forced to join it again. 

4. Pausanias. — Pausanias,when he reached Sparta 
(p. 75), was tried for treason, but not condemned. He 
returned to Asia Minor, and tried to persuade some 
of the States there to join him in his plans. The 
Spartans again made him return ; and now he began 
to plot with the Helots for overthrowing the govern- 
ment of Sparta. At last the ephors (p. .?3) contrived 
to overhear him speaking to one of his slaves, and what 
they heard convinced them of his treason. He took 
refuge in a temple, and was starved to dealh (b c. 467). 

5. Themistokles, — The ephors discovered that 
Themistokies was mixed up with the treason of Pau- 
sanias. With all his wonderful powers of mind, The- 
mistokies had httle feeling of honour. He had nevef 



r.) PARTIES. 77 

cared whether what he did was upright or not, so long 
as it gained his end ; and when the war was over he 
had used his great power to extort money for himself 
from, the weaker States. His injustice and his boast- 
fulness made him hated at Athens, and in B.C. 471 he 
was ostrakised, and went to live at Argos. When he 
found that his share in the treason of Pausanias was 
discovered, he fled, and made his way through many 
dangers to Susa, the capital of the Persian empire. 
Xerxes was just dead, and his son Artaxerxes was 
king. Themistokles wrote a letter to king Artaxerxes, 
saying that though he had done more than any man 
to injure Xerxes, he could do services to Persia that 
should be equally great. The king gladly received 
him, and gave him great wealth. It was expected 
that Themistokles, who never failed in what he under- 
took, would enable the Persians to conquer Greece : but 
he died without attempting it. He died an exile and a 
Persian hireling, because he had set money and power 
above justice and the love of country : but never was a 
little State made into a great one more truly by a 
single man than Athens by Themistokles. 

6. Parties at Athens. — When the Athenians 
abandoned their country (p. 69), all able-bodied citi- 
zens, rich and poor alike, had served on board the 
fleet at Salamis. The share which the poor people had 
in winning that great victory made them consider that 
they had done as much for Athens as the rich, and 
that they ought not to be kept out of the offices of 
the State, as they were by the present constitution 
(pp. 41, 45). Aristides, the head of the party of the rich 
and noble, which tried to keep to old ways (p. d-j^^, 
saw that the constitution would have to be changed, 
and proposed the change himself, in order to keep 
more hasty people from taking it into their hands. 
From this time the poorest citizen might be elected to 
the archonchips or other offices, and Athens was 
more a democracy than before (p. 47). After the 
death of Aristides (b.c 468}, the leader of the party 



78 PERIKLES. [chap, 

of the nobles was Kimon, son of Miltiades, a good 
general and a very honest man. He and his followers 
were very friendly to Sparta, and wished that Athens 
and Sparta, with their leagues, should unite to carry on 
war against Persia, and do no harm to one another. 

7. Perikles. — The leader of the opposite party was 
Perikles, a noble of the Alkmaeonid clan. Perikles 
thought that everything in Athens had changed so 
much since the beginning of the Persian wars, that 
what was the right government some years back could 
not be the right government now. Athens was then 
a litde quiet inland toun. Its citizens were mostly 
small fanners, who only came into the city occasionally 
(p. 43), and might well leave State affairs to wealthier 
men, if they could keep their crops out of the hands of 
the usurer. Now, Athens was a great commercial city ; 
a new town had sprung up on the sea (p. d^i)') thronged 
with enterprising, quick-witted traders; its merchant- 
ships were in every port of Greece ; its navy had 
proved itself the strongest power in the world ; it was 
at the head of a league that covered the ^g^an Sea. 
Athens had become a ruling city, and Perikles 
thought that its citizens ought to be a race capable 
of ruling both themselves and their empire. He 
thought that the commonest citizen might be made 
intelligent and sensible by education, by attending to 
the speeches made in the Assembly, by practice as a 
juryman in trials, and by sharing in the daily life oi 
his fellow-citizens, who had almost ever)^ kind of talent 
among them. He thought, too, that the great mass ot 
citizens, if guided by wise statesmen, would form a 
better judgment on what was good for Athens than 
the small body of the nobles or the rich. He had no 
confidence that the nobles either wished to keep Athens 
in its new greatness or understood how to do so. Their 
love for past times seemed to him rather a drawback 
than an advantage, and their regard for Sparta dan- 
^rous to Athens. He saw clearly that Sparta would 
always be the jealous enemy of Athens; and thougb 



v.] CHANGES MADE BY PERIKLES. 79 

he had no desire to hurry on a war, he knew that Ki- 
mon's attempt to keep on good terms with Sparta must 
fail, and he wished Athens to make itself as strong as 
possible before the conflict should break out. 

8. Changes at Athens. — Kimon and his party had 
at first the upper hand. About B.C. 462 there was an 
earthquake in Sparta, and the Helots revolted. Sparta, 
in great danger, begged help of Athens, and Kimon 
persuaded the people to send him with a large force 
to help the Spartans. But after some time the Spartans 
suspected that the Athenian troops were playing them 
false, and sent them away. This insult exasperated 
the Athenians against Sparta. Kimon, the friend of 
Sparta, lost all his power, and the party of Perikles 
carried everything before them. They took from the 
Areopagus, in which the nobles were so powerful 
(p. 41), the right of forbidding new laws, and of 
interfering with the citizens ; and they carried a 
measure giving regular pay to the citizens for attend- 
ing the Assembly and for serving on juries, in order that 
poor men might be wilhng to give up their time to 
it, and the whole business of the State be more than 
ever conducted by the citizens themselves. The 
alliance with Sparta was broken off, and an alliance 
made with Argos, the enemy of Sparta. Kimon 
himself was ostrakised B.C. 459. 

9. Wars. — The Athenians also made alliance v/ith 
Megara, because in the mountains of Megara it would 
be easier for them to resist an army coming from Pelo- 
ponnesus. Upon this Corinth and yf^gina declared war 
with Athens. The Athenians gamed a naval victory, 
and blockaded ^gina. At the same time the Athe- 
nians had a large army in Egypt fighting against the 
Persians \ and the Corinthians, knowing that all the 
Athenian troops were occupied, invaded Megara 
(bc. 458). The "boys and old men," — that is, the citi- 
zens who were at home because they were too young 
or too old to be serving in the army, — marched 
out from Athens and completely defeated the 



So ATHENIAN WARS. [chap. 

Corinthians. Part of an inscription still remains which 
gives the names of the Athenians who were killed in 
battle in this year. In this one year they were fight- 
ing, ill Cyprus, in Egypt, in Phoenicia, in Megara, and 
ofT :^Egina and the coast of Peloponnesus. It was 
their triumph over the Persians that filled the Athe- 
nian people with this wonderful spirit and enterprise 
They felt as if nothing was too difficult for them. 

10. Bceotia. — Most of the towns of Boeotia were 
united in a League of which Thebes was the head. 
Platsea had always struggled to get free from the League, 
and had at last succeeded, by allying itself with 
Athens (p. 59). This, together with other causes, made 
Thebes the bitterest enemy of Athens. The govern- 
ment of Thebes was oligarchical, and it could only 
maintain the League by establishing oligarchical 
governments in the other towns (p. 75). To assist 
the Thebans in doing this, a Spartan army was sent 
into Boeotia (b.c. 457), and the oligarchical party in 
Athens took the occasion to make a conspiracy with 
Sparta. The Spartan army was to surprise Athens on 
its march back from Boeotia, and to give the govern- 
ment to the nobles. But the Athenians discovered the 
conspiracy, and sent out an array to meet the Spartans 
A battle was fought at Tanagra, and though the 
Athenians were beaten, the Spartans did not dare to 
enter Athens. Two months afterwards the Athenians 
marched into Boeotia, defeated the Thebans, and over- 
threw the ohgarchies in all the Boeotian towns, establish- 
ing democracies in their place. These democracies 
were really like subjects of Athens, and in Phokis and 
Lokris the state of affairs was much the same ; so that 
the Athenians now in fact governed as far as Ther- 
mopylae. In B.C. 455 iEgina was taken, and made to 
pay tribute. 

11. Long Walls. — Two great walls were now 
made, running the whole distance between Athens and 
Piraeus, — a distance of more than four miles — 
about t\^o hundred yards apart from one another 



If.) LONG WALLS, 81 

These walls immensely increased the power ol 
Athens, for they made it impossible for any land 
army to surround Athens so as to deprive it of 
food. As long as these walls were not taken, there 
was a safe passage between Athens and Piraeus ; and 
the Athenians, unless they lost their command of the 
sea, could bring food to Piraeus in ships, from which 
it could be safely carried to Athens between the 
walls, even if an army surrounded Athens on the 
land side. In B.C. 452 a truce was made with Sparta 
for five years, and the power of Athens was now at 
its height. But in B.C. 447 the nobles of the Boeotian 
towns, who had been driven out by the Athenians, re- 
covered their power, and defeated the Athenians at 
Coronea. The Athenians lost all control over Boeotia, 
Phokis, and Lokris ; and at the san\e moment Euboea 
and Megara revolted. The five years' truce was 
finished, and the Spartans invaded Attica. Athens 
was in great danger, but was saved by Perikles, who 
bribed the Spartan leaders to retreat, and subdued 
Euboea. Peace was made with Sparta for thirty years 
(B.C. 445), Athens giving up all control over Boeotia 
and the other States on the mainland, so that its 
subjects and allies were now entirely maritime (p. 75). 
About the same time the war with Persia ended. 

12. Athens under Perikles. — For the next ten 
years Perikles, holding the office of Strategus, directed 
everything at Athens. He did not place himself 
above the laws, like a tyrant, and make the people 
obey him by force ; but, remaining a simple citizen, he 
was able to rule the people through his eloquence and 
his wisdom, and above all through the perfect nobleness 
of his character. In making Athens treat her allies 
like subjects, and in giving the citizens pay for attend- 
ing to public business, he was no doubt wrong ; and 
he was mistaken in thinking that the people might be 
trusted to follow a wise leader in preference to a 
foolish one. But no man ever devoted his life 
more high-mindedly, and with less thought of self, 



82 ATHENS UNDER PERIKLES. [chap. 

to the service of his country; and for this, and for 
the great wisdom and success of his management 
generally, and still more for the noble idea which he 
had of raising all Athenian citizens to intelligence and 
good taste, Perikles is often considered the finest of 
ail Greek statesmen. One part of the work of Perikles 
will never be out of date. The best men in England 
and other free countries in our own day have the same 
feeling as Perikles had towards the people. Like 
Perikles, they wish to see the whole people, poor as 
well as rich, taking their fair share in the government, 
and interested in what goes on in the State ; and they 
believe that the happiness of a country will depend 
more than anything else upon the education and im- 
provement of the people. The means by which 
Perikles tried to improve the people were not those 
which we are used to in England, such as schools and 
clubs for helping one another, but they were those 
which seemed most natural to a Greek. More than 
any man Perikles gave to the Athenians that love of 
knowledge, of poetry, and of art, which remained to 
them when their military greatness was gone, and 
which, more than its military greatness, has made 
Athens of service to mankind. He did not give the 
people book-learning, for little book-learning existed 
in those days ; but he tried to wake up all their facul- 
ties by making their daily life bright and active instead 
of dull and hstless, and by givmg as much interest and 
nobleness as possible to the things in which the whole 
people joined, such as the worship of the gods and the 
public amusements. Under his guidance, the temiples 
and statues of the gods, which helped to give the 
Greeks their idea of the gods, were made grand, beau- 
tiful, and calm. Pictures were painted in public 
places of the actions of the gods on behalf of Athens, 
and of the greatest events in Athenian history. 
Plays, written by great poets, were performed at the 
cost of the State in a large open building before multi- 
tudes of people : the serious ones, called Tragedies, 



V.J A THENS UNDER PERIKLES. &3 

represented some sorrowful story of the heroes ; the 
amusing ones, called Comedies, often had to do with 
present affairs. These plays not only gave the peopl/" 
pleasure, and helped to make them dislike coarse and 
stnpid entertainments, but set them thinking, just as 
reading a book does now. The earUest great tragic 
poet was yEschylus, who fought at the battle of Mara- 
thon. His plays are very solemn ; there are very few 
characters, and they speak in a very stately way. The 
next, Soph5cles, put more action into his plays, and 
made his characters act and speak more like real 
human beings. After him came Euripides, the most 
tender of all the tragic poets. The greatest comic 
poet, rather later than this, was Aristophanes, whose 
plays are still most amusing. He disliked the changes 
that had been made at Athens, and laughed at the 
new-fashioned statesmen. The study of nature was 
also beginning at Athens. It had been going on for 
some time in Ionia (p. 49), but Athens was fast be- 
coming the meeting-place for all the cleverest men 
m Greece. The ordinary Athenians, however, thought 
it wicked to study nature, because they believed, for 
instance, that the sun was a god. An Ionian named 
Anaxagoras, the friend and teacher of Perikles, nar- 
rowly escaped being put to death because he said that 
the sun was made of stones, like the earth. Thus 
the search for knowledge was only now beginning in 
Athens, and the people were still superstitious ; but 
the poetry and the art of the time of Perikles have 
been a model of beauty to mankind ever since. 

13. Contrast of Athens and Sparta. — While 
Perikles was adorning Athens, Sparta remained like a 
plain village, without pubUc buildings (p. 21) ; and the 
contrast in the life of the Spartans and of the Athe- 
nians was as great as the contrast in the appearance 
of the two cities. The life of the Athenians was full 
of variety : quickness and enterprise had become part 
of their nature. The Spartans, on the contrary, kept 
to their rough military life and their old-fashioned 



84 PELOPONNESIAN WAR. [chap. 

rules. They had Httle education, and thought of little 
beyond making themselves steady soldiers. ' 

14. Peloponnesian War. — In B.C. 431 the wai 
broke out between Athens and the Peloponnesian 
League, which, after twenty-seven years, ended in the 
ruin of the Athenian empire. It began through a 
quarrel between Corinth and Kerkyra, in which Athens 
assisted Kerkyra. A congress was held at Sparta ; 
Corinth and other States complained of the conduct 
of Athens, and war was decided on. The real cause 
of the war was that Sparta and its allies were jealous 
of the great power that Athens had gained. A far 
greater number of Greek States were engaged in this 
w^ar than had ever been engaged in a single under- 
taking before. States that had taken no part in the 
Persian war were now fighting on one side or the 
other. Sparta was an oligarchy, and the friend of 
the nobles everywhere; Athens was a democracy, and 
the friend of the common people ; so that the war was 
to some extenj; a struggle between these classes all 
over Greece, and often within the same city walls the 
nobles and the people attacked one another, the 
nobles being for Sparta, and the people for Athens. 

15. Powers of Athens and Sparta. — On the 
side of Sparta, when the war began, there was all Pelo- 
ponnesus except Argos and Achaea, and also the 
oligarchical Boeotian League under Thebes (p. 80), 
besides Phokis, Lokris, and other States west of thera. 
They were very strong by land, but the Corinthians 
alone had a good' fleet. Later on we shall see 
the powerful State of Syracuse (p. 35), with its navy, 
acting with Sparta. On the side of Athens there were 
almost all the ^ga^an islands, and a great number of 
the ^gsean coast towns, as well as Kerkyra and certain 
States in the west of Greece. The Athenians had also 
made alliance with Sitalkes, the barbarian king of the 
interior of Thrace. Athens was far stronger by sea 
than Sparta, but had not such a strong land army. 
On the other hand it had a large treasure, and a 



r.] PLANS OF PERIKLES, 85 

system of taxes, while the Spartan League had little or 
no money. In character the Athenians had the ad- 
vantage, for they were ready for anything, and made the 
most of every chance, while the Spartans were slow, 
and would not change their ways. But Sparta had a 
great superiority in this, that its allies were acting 
with a good will, while many of -the so-called allies of 
the Athenians were really not their allies at all, but 
their subjects : and in almost every city, though the 
common people were usually in favour of Athens, the 
nobles were eager to rise against her. The Spartans 
gave out that they made war in order to break down 
the tyranny of Athens and to restore freedom to 
all Greek States. 

16. Plans of Perikles and of Sparta. — As 
Sparta was much stronger by land, and Athens by sea, 
Perikles advised the Athenians never to fight a battle 
by land, but, when the Spartans invaded Attica, to 
take refuge within Athens and to allow the Spartans to 
ravage the country. The long walls would enable the 
Athenians to import their food by sea, so that the 
destruction of the crops would be of little matter ; 
and they could do more harm to Sparta than Sparta 
could do to them, by making sudden descents by 
sea upon places in Peloponnesus. This was how 
Perikles wished to carry on the war ; and he advised 
the Athenians to be content with keeping their 
empire over the islands, and not to attempt great 
conquests on the mainland or in distant places. The 
Spartans, on the other hand, hoped to exhaust the Athe- 
nians by ravaging their country year after year, and to 
deprive them of the money which they received in 
tribute, by persuading their subjects to revolt. 

17. Invasions of Attica. Plague. — In the 
summer of B.C. 431 the Spartans invaded Attica and 
destroyed** the crops, but no battle was fought. The 
next year they again invaded it ; and when the people 
were crowded within the walls of Athens, a plague 
broke out, which killed great numbers. The strength 



86 DEATH OF PERIKLES. [chap. 

of Athens was only reduced for the moment ; but it is 
probable that the plague affected the whole future his- 
tory of Athens by destroying many of the men who 
bad been trained by Perikles, and who, at his death, 
would have kept the State in the wise course which 
Perikles had laid down for it. The Spartans invaded 
Attica again in three out of the next live yeais. 

i8. Death of Perikles. — Perikles died in b.c. 429. 
Some time before his death the Athenians had turned 
against him and unjustly condemned him to pay a fine ; 
but they repented, and Perikles was again set at the 
head of the State. After his death there was no man like 
him in Athens. Demagogues arose {hr]jjiayii)yc<i — Srjfiog, 
people, iywyoQ, leader), men who, without real know- 
ledge, set themselves up as the leaders of the people 
and got on by making effective speeches. Perikles had 
often withstood the people, and told them fearlessly 
when they were wrong. The demagogues, on the other 
hand, depended on the favour of the people, and said 
what they thought the people would like to hear. The 
chief of them was Kleon, a tanner. The nobles, for 
their part, had clubs, through which they tried to keep 
the direction of the State in their own hands ; and 
the demagogues were like the natural leaders of 
the people against these clubs of the nobles. 

19. Siege of Plataea (b.c. 429-427). — In the third 
year of the war, the Spartan king, Arcbidamus, laid siege 
to Platgea with a large army, in spite of the oath taken 
by Pausanias (p.72), because Plataea had always resisted 
the attempts of Thebes to govern the Boeotian towns, 
and alhed itself with Athens for protection against 
Thebes. The garrison consisted of only 400 PJatgeans 
and 80 Athenians; but they made so good a de- 
fence that Archidamus gave up all hope of taking 
the town by storm, and built a double wall round 
it, in order to take it by famine. When the siege 
had been going on for more than a year, and 
provisions were running short, part of the garrison 
resolved to break their way out through the Spartans 



v.] PHORMIO. 87 

In the middle of a stormy winter's night they stole 
out of the town gate, carrying ladders with ♦hem, and 
came up to the Spartan wall unperceived. They set 
their ladders to the wall and mounted it surprised 
and killed the Spartan sentinels on the top of the 
wall, and escaped through the very midst of the Spar- 
tans, with the exception of a single man who wa? 
taken prisoner. This brave act enabled the rest of 
the'^garrison to hold out for some time longer; but at 
last their food came to an end, and they had to sur- 
render. The Spartans put them all to death, in order 
to please theThebans,and razed the town to the ground. 
20. Phormio's Victories. — In the west of 
Greece both the Athenians and the Peloponnesians had 
allies. After the revolt of the Helots, in B.C. 462 (p. 79), 
the Athenians had settled a body of Messenian exiles, 
the bitterest enemies of Sparta, at Naupaktus, at the 
mouth of the Corinthian Gulf; and the harbour of 
Naupaktus enabled an Athenian fleet to be kept in 
these waters. Further west, Akarnania was in 
alliance with Athens, Amprakia with Sparta. The 
Spartans planned an expedition against Akarnania 
both by land and sea. The land attack failed ; and 
Phormio, the commander of the Athenian fleet at 
Naupaktus, gained two most striking victories over 
the Peloponnesians by sea. In the first battle 
Phormio, with twenty ships, beat the Peloponnesians 
with forty-seven ; in the second the Peloponnesians 
had seventy-seven, and Phormio only twenty, as before. 
Phormio won the first battle by moving his ships about 
quickly: he was an excellent commander, and the 
Athenian crews were so well trained that they could 
do things of which the Peloponnesians had no idea. 
Accordingly in the second battle the Peloponne- 
sians tried to drive Phormio close ashore, where his 
skill would be of no avail. Nine of his ships were thus 
cut off from the sea, and were beaten ; but the other 
eleven escaped into the harbour of Naupaktus, and, 
turning suddenly round upon the victorious and. 



88 SPHAKTERIA, [cha?. 

pursuing Peloponneslan fleet, beat its divisions one 
after the other, capturing six ships, and rescuing those 
of their own nine which had been captured in the first 
part of the battle (b.c. 429). 

21. Revolt of Mytilene. — In b.c. 428 the island 
of Lesbos, with its chief place, Mytilene, revolted from 
Athens. The Athenians blockaded Mytilene by land 
and sea, and the Spartans were slow in sending help, 
Mytilene surrendered, and Kleon persuaded the Athen- 
ians to send an order that every grown-up man should 
be put to death. Next day the Athenians repented 
of their cruelty, and another order was sent off, which 
arrived just in time to save the Mytileneans. Still the 
Athenians had a thousand of them killed. 

22. Demosthenes. — The Messenians at Nau- 
paktus persuaded Demosthenes, an Athenian general, 
to invade a territory of the ^tohans, their neigh- 
bours and enemies. Demosthenes, who was very 
bold and adventurous, hoped not only to conquer 
-^tolia, but to go on marching eastward, and reduce 
all the country along the north of the Corinthian 
Gulf between Naupaktus and Attica. But the land 
of the ^tolians proved too rugged for an army to 
cross, and Demosthenes had to turn back, after 
losing a considerable number of men. Soon, how- 
ever, he made full amends for his error; for, when 
the Spartans and Amprakiots again attacked Akar- 
nania by land, Demosthenes dealt the Amprakiots 
one of the most ruinous defeats known in Greek 
history, and forced the Spartans to give up the war 
in that district (b.c. 426). 

23. Sphakteria. — Soon after this, Demosthenes 
seized and fortified the promontory of Pylus on the 
west coast of Messenia, in order to ravage the country 
and excite the Helots to revolt (b.c. 425). The Spar- 
tans in consequence laid siege to Pylus, and placed 
some of their troops on an island called Sphakteria, 
close to Pylus. But a large Athenian fleet came to the 
help of Demosthenes, and drove the Spartan ships 



r] KERKYRA, 89 

ashore, so that the troops on the island of Sphakteria 
had no means of getting off again, and were caught in a 
^rap. Among them were many of the noblest Spar- 
tans, and there was no possibility of rescuing them 
from, the island. So great was the dismay caused by 
this at Sparta, that the ephors tried to make peace 
with Athens : but the Athenians, persuaded by Kleon, 
asked unreasonable terms. Kleon was now made 
general himself, and had the glory of bringing the 
Spartans on the island prisoners to Athens, although 
the work was really done by Demosthenes. Their 
suiTender greatly lowered the fame of Sparta, for it 
had hitherto been believed that Spartan soldiers would 
rather die than surrender. Soon afterwards the Athe- 
nians, under Nikias, conquered the island of Kythera, 
off the south-east end of Peloponnesus. Possessing this, 
they could ravage the Spartan coast at their pleasure. 

24. Massacres at Kerkyra. — The nobles of 
Kerkyra, which was a democracy, conspired to put 
down the democracy, and break off the alliance with 
Athens (p. 84). They killed the leaders of the people, 
and seized on the arsenal and the docks. But the people 
attacked and defeated them, and for seven days the 
city was given up to vengeance and bloodshed. Five 
hundred of the nobles, however, escaped, and fortified 
a hill outside the town. There they were blockaded by 
the people, whom the Athenians assisted, and they sur- 
rendered on condition of being sent to trial at Athens. 
Instead of this they were all murdered. This is the 
worst instance of the furious hatred which the war 
caused between the parties of the nobles and the 
people in the Greek cities. 

25. Boeotia and Thrace. Brasidas. — The 
success of the Athenians at Sphakteria filled them 
with unreasonable pride ; and they now thought of 
regaining the power on the mainland which they had 
possessed between b.c. 457 and b.c. 447 (p. 81), and 
which Perikles had advised them not to attempt to 
recover. They accordingly invaded Boeotia (b.c 



tfo PEACE OF NIKIAS. [chap. 

424), but were complerely defeated in the battle ol 
Delium. At the same time a Spartan general, 
named Brasidas, marched into Thrace and per- 
suaded Amphipolis and other coast-towns to revolt 
from Athens. Brasidas was far more than an ordi- 
nary Spartan soldier. He had none of the usual 
Spartan slowness and fear of change. He was swift 
and daring ; and not only this, but he had the power 
of making men trust and love him. Unlike most of 
the Spartans (p. 83), he Avas an eloquent speaker; 
and his words no less than his deeds excited the 
Thracian towns to rise against Athens. The loss ol 
these towns, together with the defeat at Delium, 
turned the tide of war against the Athenians, which 
had hitherto been in their favour. Kleon was sent to 
recover AmphipoUs. There he encountered Brasidas, 
and both Brasidas and Kleon were killed (b.c. 422). 

26. Peace of Nikias. — Kleon had been the 
leader of the party most zealous for war, and his 
death made peace possible. Peace was made in B.C. 
421, each side agreeing to give up their prisoners and 
the places they had taken in the war. The Athenians, 
however, were allowed by the Spartans to keep certain 
places which had surrendered to them and had not 
been taken by force. This conduct of Sparta gave 
such offence to the Corinthians and other States, from 
whom these places had been taken, that they refused 
to acknowledge the peace. On the other hand, the 
Athenians did not get back Amphipolis. The peace 
is named after Nikias, the Athenian general, who had 
the chief share in making it. The Spartans had 
gained nothing by the war, and the empire of Athens, 
except for the loss of Amphipolis, was as strong as ever 

27. Alkibiades. Mantinea. — The head of the 
party who were opposed to peace, and wished to 
make new^ conquests, was now Alkibiades. Alki- 
biades was a young noble, very clever and daring, 
but bent only on making a great figure in the world. 
Owing to his cleverness and his good looks he haG 



v.] ALKIBJADES. 91 

been so spoilt and flattered that nothing could control 
him. If he liked to do a thing, he did it, without the 
least regard for the law. The impudence with which 
he told lies and deceived people in order to gain 
his ends almost passes belief. But his genius gave 
him great power over the Athenians, and the everita 
now coming were due to his advice. Some of the 
Peloponnesian States, in their discontent with Sparta^ 
were making a new League, with Argos at its head : 
Alkibiades persuaded the Athenians to join the League 
with Argos, and Athens now began to intfifere with 
the aftairs of the Peloponnesian States. The peace 
with Sparta was soon broken, and the Athenians 
joined the Argives in invading Arkadia. At Mantinea 
the Spartan king Agis met them and defeated them in 
a great battle, which broke up the Argive League, and 
restored the power and fame of Sparta (b.c. 418). 

28. Me I OS. — The island of Melos was now almost 
the only ^ggean island not subject to Athens. The 
Athenians, without any pretence of right, except that 
Melos was necessary to their empire, summoned it to 
submit to them ; and when the Melians refused, 
they conquered the island, put all the grown-up men 
to death, and sold the women and children as 
slaves (B.C. 418). 

29. Sicilian Expedition. — The Athenians had 
for some time been interfering in the affairs of the Greek 
cities in Sicily (p. 35), and in B.C. 416, the city of Egesta 
applied to them for help against Syracuse. Alkibiades 
excited the Athenians with the hope of forming a new 
empire in Sicily, and Nikias in vain argued against 
such wild plans of conquest. It was determined to 
send an immense armament, and Nikias, Alkibiades 
and Lamachus, were appointed commanders. Since 
the death of Perikles, Nikias had been the citizen 
most esteemed in Athens. He was a noble, and very 
rich, but he served the people faithfully. More than 
any man he kept to the wise plans of Perikles for 
carrying on the war (pp. 85, 89), and resisted rash coun- 



92 MUTILATION OF THE HERMM, [chai-. 

sels. He was just and pious ; but in the religion of that 
time there was much superstition, and the very piety of 
Nikias led, as we shall see, to a fearfal result. Nikias 
had held many commands : he was a very brave man, 
and had hitherto been successful in war. But though 
he had done well in smaller enterprises, he was not 
fit for the immense command which was now given 
him. He was too cautious and hesitating, and let 
time pass idly by when not a moment ought to have 
been lost. The third general, Lamachus, was a good 
«:oldier, but he was so poor that nobody would listen 
.o his advice. 

30. Mutilation of the Hermse. — In all the 
streets of Athens there were placed busts of the god 
i-Termes, who protected the Athenian democracy. When 
the people rose one morning shortly before the expedi- 
tion -.vas to start, they found that all these busts had 
been disfigured in the night. Violent alarm seized upon 
the city, for the act was not only a daring insult to 
the gods, but a threat against the democracy. Among 
others, Alkibiades was accused of being concerned in 
it. He begged the people to settle his innocence 
or guilt before the expedition started ; but his enemies 
caused the inquiry to be put off, that they might make 
charges against him in his absence. 

31. The Expedition. — In June b.c. 415, a fleet 
of 100 triremes sailed from Athens against Syracuse. 
At Kerkyra it was joined by the forces of the allies, 
and the whole armament mustered 134 triremes and 
500 carrying ships, having on board over 5,000 heavy 
armed men, besides slingers and light-armed. Lama- 
chus wdshed to attack Syracuse instantly, befoie it 
could prepare for defence : but instead of this the 
generals went about among the Sicilian towns seeking 
for allies. While they were thus engaged, Alkibiades 
was summoned home to answer a new charge of sacri- 
lege. He fled to Sparta, and became the bitterest 
enemy of Athens. Nothing was done during the 
autumn, and Nikias kept his forces idle at (SiciHan) 



v.] THE SIEGE, 93 

Maxos during the winter. The Syracusans in the 
meantime fortified their town and sent to Greece foi 
help. Remembering what Brasidas had done in 
Thrace, they begged the Spartans above all things 
to send them a Spartan general to take command. 
Alkibiades, who was now at Sparta, out of hatred to 
Athens persuaded the Spartans to do as the Syra- 
cusans asked. 

32. The Siege. — Syracuse was the largest and 
most powerful city in Sicily. It lay on the coast, with 
high ground behind it. Since the delay of Nikias had 
enabled the Syracusans to make their fortifications, 
there was no hope of taking the town by assault, and 
the only chance of the Athenians w^as to starve it out 
by cutting off provisions by land and sea. They 
therefore, in the spring of B.C. 414, began to build a 
double wall round the town on the land side (p. Z(i\ 
and made such progress with it that Syracuse was 
almost given up for lost. At the same time the 
Athenian fleet blockaded Syracuse by sea. But soon 
after this Lamachus was killed, and Nikias was left 
alone in command ; and before the wall was quite 
finished a Spartan general named Gylippus arrived 
with about 3,000 mixed troops, and through the care 
lessness of Nikias was able to make his way into 
Syracuse. From this moment everything changed. 
Gylippus filled everybody with new hope. He defeated 
the Athenians on the high ground behind the town, 
and built a cross-wall in such a direction that unless 
the Athenians could take it they could never finish 
their own wall round Syracuse. The siege now stopped. 
The Athenian army had to keep to the part of the 
vvall which they had built; their ships were rotting 
from w^ant of repaJrs ; the slaves who rowed the ships, 
and the citizens of subject States who served in the 
crews, were deserting ; and the Syracusans, who had at 
first thought themselves hopelessly inferior to the Athe- 
nians by sea, were now manning ships in the harbour, 
and practising for a battle. Nikias wrote to Athens 



94 DEMOSTHENES. [CHAP. 

for reinforcements, and asked to be allowed to give 
lip the command (Sept. B.C. 414), for he was suffering 
from a painful disease. The Athenians foolishly in- 
sisted on his keeping it. In the spring of B.C. 413 
Gylippus attacked the Athenians by sea. He was 
defeated in the first battle ; but while the fleets were 
engaged in the harbour, the land army of Gylippus 
seized the naval camp and stores of the Athenians on 
the beach. In the second battle the Athenian fleet 
was completely defeated, and the Syracusans now 
looked forward to the entire destruction of the 
Athenians. 

33 Demosthenes. — But hardly had the Syracu- 
sans won this victory, when they were dismayed to 
see a new Athenian fleet enter their harbour. The 
Athenians had made an immense effort, and had 
sent out seventy-five more triremes, with a new army, 
under ccmimand of Demosthenes, the most resolute 
and daring of all their soldiers. Demosthenes saw 
at once that unless the cross -wall of Gylippus were 
taken they could never surround Syracuse. Having 
failed in an attack upon it from the front, he led his 
troops a long way round by night, mounted the. 
high ground without being perceived, and attacked 
Gylippus in the darkness. At first Demosthene? 
was victorious, but the darkness threw his troops into 
confusion. They slaughtered one another, and the 
battle ended in ruinous disaster. 

34. Destruction of the Athenians.— His attach 
on the wall having failed, Demosthenes knew that 
Syracuse could not now be taken, and urged Nikias to 
retreat at once, before further evil befel them. Nikias 
for a long time refused j at length he agreed, and the 
order was given to sail the next day (Aug. 27, B.C. 
413). But that night there was an eclipse of the 
moon, and Nikias, who deeply reverenced all sup- 
posed signs from heaven, was told by the soothsayers 
that the army must not move 101 a month (p. 51). The 
Syracusans had now discovered Nikias' intention 



v.] RUIN OF THE ATHENIANS. 95 

to retreat, and determined not to let the Atheniani. 
escape. They blockaded the great harbour in which 
the whole Athenian fleet lay, so that the Athenians 
could only escape by forcing their way through the 
enemy's ships. When every possible preparation had 
been made, the Athenian fleet advanced, and the 
battle began. I'he entire population of Syracuse 
crowded to the water's edge watching the battle, and 
on the opposite side of the harbour the Athenian 
troops which had not gone on shipboard were drawn 
up,~ the whole multitude shouting and swaying their 
bodies in exultation, or agony, as they saw their 
friends conquering or conquered. It was a struggle 
for life or death. The Athenians fought with despair- 
ing bravery; but in vain. They were beaten and 
driven back upon the shore of the harbour. Their 
only possible chance now was to escape by land to 
some friendly city. Abandoning their wounded and 
dead, and in the depth of misery themselves, the 
entire host, numbering, it is said, 40,000 men, struck 
into the interior of the island. Perishing with hunger 
and thirst they were pursued and attacked by the 
Syracusans, and at the end of six days all who had 
not died or deserted were made prisoners. Nikias 
•.nd Demosthenes took poison, in order to escape 
being displayed to the Syracusan populace. All the 
rest of the prisoners were made into slaves. Such 
was the fearful end of this great armament, the 
greatest that had ever yet been sent out by a Greek 
State. 

35. Danger of Athens. Dekeleia. — The ruin 
of the Sicilian expedition was one of the greatest cala 
mities that ever befel any nation. If the Spartans had 
acted with energy they might have crushed Athens at 
once, but they missed their opportunity, and the 
Athenians kept up the war with wonderful spirit. 
They were indeed liard pressed. The Spartan king 
Agis, by the advice of Alkibiades (p. 92), had seized 
0. strong ulace, named Dekeleia, in the heart of AtticA- 
9 



96 REVOLT OF CHIOS, [chai» 

and kept a garrison there permanently, which ravaged 
the country in every direction, so that no crops could 
be grown. The cattle were destroyed, the slaves ran 
away to the Spartans, and the roads could not be 
used. Athens depended for food on supphes brought 
in ships, chiefly from Euboea and from the coasts of 
the Black Sea. 

2^6. Revolt of Chios — Alkibiades also per- 
suaded the Spartans to build a fleet, and send it 
over to Asia to assist the lonians in revolting. He 
himself crossed at once to Chios with a few ships, in 
order to begin the revolt. The government of Chios 
was in the hands of the nobles ; but they had hitherto 
served Athens so well that the Athenians had not 
altered the government to a democracy (p. 84). 
Now, however, they revolted (b.c. 413). This was 
a heavy blow to Athens, for Chios was the most 
powerful of the Ionian States, and others would be 
sure to follow its example. Miletus and Lesbos re- 
volted in B.C. 412. The nobles of Samos prepared to 
revolt, but the people were in favour of Athens, and 
rose against the nobles, killing two hundred of them, 
and banishing four hundred more. Athens now made 
Samos its free and equal ally instead of its subject, 
and Samos became the head- quarters of the Athenian 
fleet and army. 

37. Alliance between Sparta and Tissa- 
phernes. — Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap of the 
centre of Asia Minor, wished to see the empire of 
Athens overthrown, because it kept Ionia free from 
Persia. He therefore made alliance with the Spartans, 
promising to pay the troops which they had sent over 
to Ionia ; and the Spartans basely agreed to give up 
to Persia all the Greek cities in Asia Minor. The 
Athenians, however, had now manned a fresh navy. 
They defeated the Peloponnesian and Persian fleets 
together at Miletus, and were only kept from besieg- 
ing Miletus by the arrival of a fleet from Syracuse. 

38 Alkibiades leaves the Spartans. — Alki 



v.] THE FOUR HUNDRED. 97 

blades had made enemies among the Spartans, and 
when he had been some time in Asia Minor 
an order came over from Sparta to put him to 
death. He escaped to Tissaphernes, and now made 
up his mind to win back the favour of Athens by- 
breaking up the alliance between Tissaphernes and 
the Spartans. He contrived to make a quarrel between 
them about the rate of pay, and persuaded Tissa- 
phernes that it would be the best thing for Persia to 
let the Spartans and Athenians wear one another out, 
without giving help to either. Tissaphernes therefore 
kept the Spartans idle for months, always pretending 
that he was on the point of bringing up his fleet to 
help them. Alkibiades now sent a lying message to 
the generals of the Athenian army at Samos that 
he could get Athens the help cf Tissaphernes, if the 
Athenians would allow him to return from his exile : 
but he said that he could never return while there was 
a democracy ; so that if they wished for the help of 
Persia, they must change the government to an 
oligarchy (b.c. 412). 

39. The Four Hundred. — In the army at Samos 
there were many rich men willing to see an oligarchy 
established at Athens, and peace made with Sparta 
(p. 78). The rich had to contribute very heavily 
towards the expenses of the war ; the sums spent in 
paying citizens for attending the assembly and jury 
courts (p. 79) exhausted the State ; and the demo- 
cracy had brought discredit on itself by its folly in 
deciding upon the Sicilian expedition against the 
advice of Nikias and other moderate men. There- 
fore, though the great mass of the army at Samoa 
was democratical, a certain number of powerful men 
agreed to the plan of Alkibiades for changing the go- 
vernment. One of the conspirators, named Pisander, 
was sent to Athens to instruct the clubs of nobles 
and rich men (p. 86) to work secretly for this 
object. In these clubs the overthrow of the demo- 
cracy was planned. Citizens known to be zealous for 



o8 THE FOUR HUNDRED, [chap. 

the constitution were secretly murdered. Terror fell 
over the city, for no one except the conspirators knew 
who did, and who did not, belong to the plot ; and 
at last, partly by force, the assembly was brought to 
abolish the popular government and all the magis- 
tracies, and to give the State wholly into the hands 
of four hundred men of the party of the nobles. 
There was professedly to be an assembly of 5,000 
citizens, but the Four Hundred did not mean to 
summon it. They now put to death many more of 
their enemies, and began to treat for peace with 
Sparta (b.c. 411). 

40. The Army at Samos. — ^When the army 
at Samos heard of what had happened at Athens, 
they were furious against the conspirators, and took 
an oath to preserve the democracy. They declared 
themselves to be the true body of Athenian citizens, 
since those at home had abandoned the constitution ; 
and they met togethe-r with all the forms of the popu- 
lar assembly, and elected the regular magistrates of 
the State. The democratic leaders of the army made 
friends with Alkibiades, who thereupon broke off his 
connection with the Four Hundred, and was made 
general of the army. Alkibiades had done the most 
deadly injury to his country. It was through him 
that Gylippus had been sent to Sparta, that Agis had 
occupied Dekeleia, aiid that Chios had revolted. But 
the soldiers were so convinced that he could get them 
the help of Tissaphernes, and make up for all the evil 
he had done to Athens, that they forgave him every- 
thing. 

41. The Four Hundred Overthrown. — The 
Four Hundred were divided among themselves ; the 
more moderate were for summoning the 5,000 citizens, 
and allowing some kind of liberty ; the more des- 
perate were determined to keep their power at any 
cost, and sent to the Spartans offering to admit them 
into Pn-oeus. The Spartans missed their opportunity ; 
and the people could bear the government of the 



v.] BATTLES IN THE HELLESPONT, 99 

Four Hundred no longer. The ancient constitution 
was restored, except that a man was required to have 
certain property to vote as a citizen, and that the 
payment for attending the assembly and the jurv 
courts was abolished. A few of the leaders of the 
l*"our Hundred were put to death after a regular 
trial ; but the people acted with great calmness and 
moderation, and there was no such violence as took 
place m Kerkyra and other states (b.c. 411). 

At this moment Euboea revolted and joined the 
Spartans. This was a desperate blow to Athens. 
No food could be grown in Attica, and now not only 
was it deprived of the food tha*^ came from Euboea 
(p. 96), but the Spartans, by occupying Euboea and its 
ports, could fall upon ships bringing food to Athens 
from other places. 

42. Athenian Victories in the Hellespont. 
The Spartans, who at first fought only by land, 
had now grown used to the sea, and were prepared 
to fight out the war with the Athenian fleet off 
the coast of Asia Minor. When they found that 
Tissaphernes did not really mean to help them, they 
moved their fleet from Ionia to the Hellespont, to act 
with Pharnabazus, the satrap of the northern part of 
Asia Minor, and to assist the towns in that district, 
which, had already begun to revolt from Athens. 
Mindarus, the Spartan admiral, hoped to gain com- 
mand of the Bosporus and Hellespont, for then 
Athens would be cut off from the towns on the Black 
Sea, on which it now depended for corn. The Athe- 
nian fleet at Samos followed Mindarus northwards, 
and two battles were fought in the Hellespont, both 
of which were gained by the Athenians. In February 
B.C. 410, by the skill of Alkibiades, the Spartan fleet 
which was besieging Kyzikus in the Propontis was 
surrounded by the Athenians. Mindarus ran his ships 
aground and fought a land battle. The Spartans 
were completely defeated, Mindarus was killed, and 
their entire fleet lost. So great was the blow thai 
LofC. 



100 LYSANDER TAKES ATHENS. [chap. 

they sent proposals of peace to Athens, but the 
Athenians unwisely rejected them. Alkibiades con 
tinned to do Athens good service during the next two 
years, and the revolted towns about the Bosporus were 
conquered. 

43. Lysander and Cyrus, i^gospotami. — 
I'he king of Persia, seeing how Athens was recover- 
ing her power, and knowing that, if Athens came out 
of the war victoriously, the Persians could not recover 
Ionia, now determined really to help the Spartans, 
and sent his younger son, Cyrus, to the coast, to assist 
them wnth money. The new Spartan admiral, Lysan- 
der, was a most skilful leader and manager. He made 
such friendship wdth Cyrus, that Cyrus not only gave 
the Spartans the pay which he had promised, but in- 
creased it : and it was through this Persian money that 
Sparta at length overcame Athens. The war con- 
tinued, however, and the Athenians gained more 
victories, till B.C. 405, when Lysander caught the 
Athenian fleet quite unprepared at ^'gospotami in 
the Hellespont, and captured the whole of it. 

44. Downfall of Athens. — Their fleet being 
gone, the Athenians had now nothing left but Athens 
itself The towns in Asia Minor one after another 
surrendered to Lysander, except Samos ; and in 
November B.C. 405 Lysander blockaded Piraeus with 
his fleet, while the Spartan army, under Agis, sur- 
rounded Athens by land. The long w^alls were useless 
now, because Lysander was master of the sea, and no 
ships could approach Piraeus with food. After four 
months the city was compelled by famine to surrender 
(March B.C. 404). The terms of peace were that 
Athens should give up her entire empire, and that 
the long wahs and fortifications of Pin^eus should be 
destroyed. This was the end of the grandeur of 
Athens. 

45. The Thirty Tyrants. — Lysander now 
helped the most violent among the nobles to over- 
throw the democracy, and set up a government of 



v.] THE THIRTY TYRANTS, lOl 

thirty men. The chief of these was Kritias. The 
crimes of the Thirty are among the very worst 
recorded in Greek history. They put hundreds of 
the citizens to death, without trial, and acted with 
such violence, wickedness, and cruelty, that they 
were always known afterwards as the " Thirty 
Tyrants." A garrison of Spartans was placed in 
Vthens to protect them. But after eight months the 
citizens whom they had banished marched upon 
Athens. Regular battles were fought, and at last 
the Spartans ceased to protect the Thirty. The 
government of the people was restored in the spring 
of B.C. 403. However unwise the democracy had 
been (p. 97), it had never committed such crimes 
as the oligarchical governments of the Four Hundred 
and the Thirty. 

46. Unbelief. Socrates. — The desperate strug- 
gles between the nobles and the people which were 
caused by the war in so many cities (pp. 84, 89, 96), 
made men disregard everything except the interests 
of the party to which they belonged. In their hatred 
against the opposite faction in the State, men lost their 
care for the State itself. The interest of the party was 
put in the place of law, custom, and piety. This, 
together with other causes, tended to break down the 
belief of educated Greeks in their old religion, and 
their old distinctions between right and wrong. The 
war spread violence all over Greece. Men acted as it 
mere force gave a right to everything (p. 91); and 
some even taught that this was so. In this bad time 
a man arose at Athens, named Socrates, who had such 
thoughts of truth and goodness as no Greek had ever 
had before him. He taught that it was better to suffer 
wrong than to do wrong ; and that the gods wished 
men to honour them, not by beliefs and observances, 
but by doing good. His way of teaching was by 
asking questions, until he made people see how 
little they knew. The Athenians misunders';ood him : 
he was accused of destroying men's belief in the gods, 



I02 RULE OF SPARTA. [chap. 

and was put to death. While in prison he had the 
chance of escaping, but refused. The death ot 
Socrates for the sake of the truth was a new thing in 
the history of Greece. Many men had died bravely 
for their country, but Socrates rather died like a 
missionary or a martyr. Both his life and his death 
made a deep impression upon those who had known 
him ; and from this time there were men in Greece 
who gave up their lives to the search after truth. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SPARTA, THEBES, MACEDONIA. 

1. Rule of Sparta. — Sparta had now control 
over all the places that had been subject to Athens. 
Lysander went through the cities, establishing m each 
an oligarchical government of ten citizens favom-able 
to Sparta, and also a Spartan governor, called the 
hannost {apiJo(TT})c, manager). The government of 
the Spartan harmosts was much more oppressive 
than that of the Athenians had been, and Sparta soon 
came to be hated by all the Greek States. The chief 
Spartans gained great wealth, and the character of the 
Spartan State changed (p. 22). There were now at 
Sparta a few very rich and powerful citizens, and the 
rest grew more and more poor and discontented. 

2. Retreat of the Ten Thousand (B.C. 
401). — Artaxerxes, the elder brother of that Cyrus 
who had helped Lysander (p. 100), had succeeded 
his father as king of Persia. Cyrus resolved to 
make Jiimself king in his place, and hired an army 
of about 10,000 Greeks, with whom he marched 
into the interior of the empire. At Kynaxa, near 
Babylon, a batde was fought, and Cyrus was killed, 
rhe Greeks had now to make their way back 
to the coast from the very centre of the empire, 
through the enemy's country. Their return is called 
the "Retreat of the 10,000," and we have a history 
of it. written by Xenophon their leader. Their escape 



VI.] PEACE OF ANTALKIDAS. 103 

showed how weak the Persian empire really was ; for, 
had it possessed an army good for anything, the little 
Greek force must have been destroyed in the course 
of its long retreat. 

3. Sparta at War with Persia. — The Spartans 
were ashamed of having given up the Greeks in Asia 
to Persia, and now made war upon the Persian 
latraps in Asia Minor (b.c. 398). Their king Agesi- 
iaus gained some successes, and prepared to attack 
Persia with great force. Pharnabazus (p. 99) raised a 
Phoenician fleet, and gave the command of it to 
Konon, an Athenian admiral. Konon met the 
Spartan fleet off Knidus, near Rhodes, and com- 
pletely defeated it (b.c. 394). The result of this was 
that Sparta lost control over the cities in Asia Minor, 
which depended on her having command of the sea. 
The Spartan harmosts were expelled ; and Konon, 
crossing over to Athens, rebuilt the long walls and 
the fortification of Piraeus. 

4. Sparta at War with Greek States. — 
The Persians also stirred up the Greek States to make 
war on Sparta. Thebes, which had been the bitterest 
enemy of Athens, now united with her against Sparta, 
and they were joined by Corinth and Argos. The 
Spartans had to call king Agesilaus and his army 
back from Asia, in order to defend them at home. 
War was carried on for some time in the territory of 
Corinth between Spaita and the States allied against 
her ; and at the same time the Athenians sent a fleet 
to the Hellespont, and were restoring their power 
by sea. 

5. Peace of Antalkidas (B.C. 387). — The Spar- 
tans now found it necessary to make friends with Persia, 
and a disgraceful peace was made, called the peace of 
Antalkidas, by which the cities in Asia were given 
up to Persia, and the Persian king was allowed to 
command the Greeks to make peace with one another 
and to tell them what the terms of peace between 
them were to be, as if he were their master, and they 



I04 NEW A THENIAN CONFEDERACY, [chap 

were his subjects. This was the result of the struggles 
of Athens and Sparta with one another, and of the 
help which both had received from Persia. Al! 
the Greek States agreed to this peace. The League 
of the Boeotian cities under Thebes was broken up, 
and in each of them an oligarchical government 
favourable to Sparta was set up. In some of them 
the Spartans placed garrisons of their own troops. 

6. Sparta and Thebes. — There was a party in 
Thebes in favour of Sparta. When a Spartan army 
w^as passing through Boeotia, this party treacherously 
gave the citadel of Thebes, called Kadmeia, into their 
hands (b.c 382), and a garrison of 1,500 Lacedaemo- 
nians was placed there. For three years the Spartans 
were masters of Thebes, but in B.C. 379 a plot 
was made against them by some Thebans, headed by 
a noble named Pelopidas. The commanders of the 
Spartan garrison were killed, and the Kadmeia was 
recovered by the Thebans. This greatly diminished 
the power of Sparta and encouraged her enemies. 

7. New Athenian Confederacy. — The Athe- 
nians succeeded in establishing a league of seventy- 
four cities of the ^gsean Sea, resembling what the 
confederacy of Delos had been at first (p. 75). The 
cities were to keep their own governments, and a new 
name was given to the contribution which they were 
to pay, in order that the League might not seem like 
the empire of Athens restored. Thebes joined the 
League, and war was carried on against Sparta by land 
and sea. The object of the Thebans was to drive 
the Spartans out of those cities in Bceotia in which 
they still had garrisons, and to restore the Boeotian 
League with Thebes at its head. By B.C. 374 this 
object was accomplished; the governments favourable 
to Sparta were overthrown, the Spartan garrisons 
expelled, and the Boeotian League restored. Athens 
and Thebes now became jealous of each other, and 
in B.C. 371 Athens made peace with Sparta, leaving 
Thebes to carry on the war by herself. 



VI.] EFAMINONDAS, 105 

8. Epaminondas. Leuktra. — The Spartans 
immediately invaded Bceotia, but the Theban infantry 
had become the best in Greece, and their commander, 
Epaminondas, was the greatest general of his time. 
Epaminondas met the Spartans at Leuktra, and so 
completely defeated them that all over Greece it was 
felt that the power of Sparta was at an end. But 
Epaminondas was not content with destroying the 
authority of Sparta outside Peloponnesus : in order to 
break down her power in Peloponnesus itself, and to 
surround her with enemies, he determined to unite 
Arkadia, which had hitherto been a number of dis- 
connected cities, in one great League, and to make 
Messenia, which had been for 300 years subject to 
Sparta, an independent State. As the Arkadian 
cities were too jealous of one another to allow any 
one of them to be head of the league, Epaminondas 
founded a new city called Megalopolis {the great 
city, fjLeyaX}), ttoXic), at which deputies from all the 
other Arkadian cities were to meet; and a city named 
Messene was built to be the centre of the new 
Messenian State (b.c. 369). Thus Epaminondas 
completely changed the condition of Greece. He 
■brought down Sparta, which for hundreds of years 
had been the leader of a great part of Greece, to the 
level of an ordinary State, and made Thebes for the 
moment supreme. If we look at the actual changes 
which he produced, Epaminondas must be counted 
the greatest of all Greek statesmen, Themistokles 
alone excepted. But the work of Themistokles en- 
dured ; that of Epaminondas passed away. 

9. Mantinea. Death of Epaminondas. — 
Quarrels soon broke out in the new Arkadian League. 
A part of it, headed by Mantinea, was in favour of 
Sparta, the rest in favour of Thebes. In B.C. 362 the 
Spartans sent an army into Arkadia ; Epaminondas 
met them, and a battle was fought near Mantinea. The 
Thebans gained the victory, but Epaminondas was 
killed. It was Epaminondas who had raised Thebes 



lo6 MACEDON, [chap. 

to its great power : there was no one like him left in 
Thebes, and after his death its authority quickly passed 
away. 

lo. Macedon. — The Greek States had exhausted 
their power in their wars with one another, and they 
were now about to fall under the dominion of Mace- 
don. which had hitherto had no part in Greek history. 
The Macedonians were not acknowledged as Greeks. 
They were probably of mixed Greek and Illyrian race j 
but this was not the reason why they were not ranked 
among the Greeks, for many of the colonies, which 
everyone called Greek, were of equally mixed race. 
The reason was that the Macedonians did not live 
hke the Greeks. They lived mostly in the country, 
not in cities ; and while the great mark of a Greek was, 
that he belonged to a little State in which the citizens 
met together and managed the affairs of their State 
themselves, the Macedonians, on the contrary, formed 
one country subject to a king. They had no books 
and no art, but passed their time in farming and 
hunting, and a rough country life ; so that not only was 
the government of the Greeks and the Macedonians 
quite different, but to an educated Greek citizen the 
ordinary Macedonian would seem too uncouth to' 
be a Greek. The kings of Macedon, however, were 
admitted to be Greeks, and were allowed to take 
part in the Olympian games (p. 24). They had long 
been trying to make themselves and their court as 
much like the Greeks as they could. Archelaus, 
who was king about B.C. 400, had invited Greek 
poets and artists to Macedonia, and had also built 
cities and made roads, in order that his people might 
become more peaceable and prosperous. Thus, 
when the Greek States were worn out by their wars, 
Macedonia was just beginning to be a powerful coun- 
try. The people were hardy, brave, and obedient ; 
and it happened that, when the death of Epaminondas 
left Thebes without a leader, Macedonia was governed 
by a king, Philip, who was superior to any Greek ol 



VI.} PHILIP. I07 

his day. Philip had been three years a hostage ai 
Thebes in his youth, and had learnt from Epaminon- 
das both how to make the best possible army, and how 
most to strengthen his own country and weaken his 
enemies. He established a regular army, such as no 
Greek State possessed (p. 15), and set himself to ex- 
tend his dominions, and become the head and leader 
of Greece. 

11. Olynthus. — Between the eastern part of 
Philip's dominions and the sea lay the district called 
Chalkidike, in which were a number of Greek cities. 
One of these, named Olynthus, had become a very 
powerful State, and had placed itself at the head 
of a League of the neighbouring cities, called the 
Olynthian Confederacy. Further east was the import- 
ant city of AmphipoHs, which Athens had lost in the 
Peloponnesian war (p, 90), and had never been able 
to recoven Other places on this coast still belonged 
to Athens, so that Athens was concerned from the first 
in the action of Philip. Philip made friends with 
the Athenians on the pretence that he would gain 
Amphipolis for them : but when he had conquered it, 
he kept it himself; and then, in order to prevent the 
Athenians and Olynthians joining together against 
him, he gave up another city to Olynthus, so that the 
Olynthians became his alhes (b.c. 357). He now 
crossed the river Strymon and conquered the western . 
part of Thrace, in which there were very rich gold 
mines, and founded there the city of Philippi (Acts 
xvi. 12). 

12. Sacred War. — Philip soon found an oppor- 
tunity of interfering in the affairs of Greece proper, 
through a war connected with the temple of Delphi. 
Thebes, after the battle of Leuktra, had gained control 
over Phokis, but the Phokians were a spirited race, and 
threw off her dominion. The Thebans now brought 
the Council of Amphiktyons (p. 18) to take part 
against the Phokians, and to condemn them to a 
heavy fine for having cultivated the plain of Krisa 

10 



io8 DEMOSTHENES, [chaf. 

(p. 28). On this the Phokians seized the temple oA 
Delphi itself (B.C. 355); and by means of its treasures 
they were able to raise a large army, with which they 
carried on war against the Thebans and Lokrians. 
Athens and Sparta joined the Phokians, who were also 
supported by some of the tyrants reigning in Thessaly. 
The Thessalian nobles, on the other hand, applied to 
Philip for help. A great battle was fought in I'hessaly 
between Philip and the Phokians ; Philip gained 
the victory, and made himself master of all Thessaly 
(B.C. 352). He intended to march into Phokis, but 
when he reached Thermopylse he found a strong 
Athenian force there, and turned back. 

13. Demosthenes. — The Athenians had again 
placed themselves at the head of an ^gaean League 
(p. 104), and, if they had acted with spirit and wisdom, 
they might have checked Philip. But they had lost 
their old energy, and now cared more for shows and 
amusements than for anything else. The rich grudged 
giving anything to the State, and tried to escape from 
the taxes ; and the Athenians generally, whose fore- 
fethers had been ready to go anywhere and do any- 
thing for the good of Athens (p. 80), had now such 
a cowardly dislike to military service that it was 
necessary to employ hired soldiers, who were not 
Athenians at all. In B.C. 358 a war broke out between 
Athens and its allies. Athens was unsuccessful, and 
the larger cities again became independent, while only 
the smaller ones remained in the League. But there 
was one man in Athens worthy of its best days, — 
Demosthenes, the orator, Demosthenes saw that 
Philip meant to make himself master of Greece ; and, 
while many of the Athenians were for keeping on 
friendly terms with Macedon, Demosthenes was con- 
vinced that unless Philip were checked the liberty of 
Athens would be lost for ever. He strove to awaken 
the Athenians to their danger, and to stir up in them 
the spirit of their forefathers ; to make them act at 
once and with resolution, instead of letting thinga 



rx.j OLYNTHUS, 109 

take their course. The power of Demosthenes was 
his eloquence : he was the finest speaker that there 
has ever been. It was on the conquest of Thes- 
saly by Phihp that Demosthenes made his first great 
speech against Philip, called the First Fhilippic 

(B.C 352). 

14. Philip conquers Olynthus. — Thessaly 
being conquered, the Olynthians saw that Philip 
would attack them next, and sent to Athens pro- 
posing an alliance. Demosthenes urged the Athe 
nians to join Olynthus: an alliance was made, and 
the war began. But the Athenians gave so little 
help that Philip took the towns of the Olynthian 
League one after another, and last of all Olynthus 
itself fell (B.C. 348). Philip is said to have completely 
destroyed thirty cities, and to have sold all the 
Olynthians who fell into his hands as slaves. The 
whole of Chalkidike was thus added to Philip's 
dominions. 

15. Philip ends the Sacred War.— The Sa- 
cred War was still going on. Philip contrived to make 
a treaty of peace with all the Greek States except the 
Phokians ; and when he had thus cut the Phokians 
off from all help, he marched into Phokis and con- 
quered the entire country, inflicting such misery and 
ruin as the Greeks had never seen. He occupied 
Delphi, gave the temple back to its managers, and 
summoned the Amphiktyonic Council. The Council 
decreed that every Phokian town should be de- 
stroyed, and the Phokians should live in villages only. 
The votes which the Phokians had had in the Council 
were transferred to Philip, and he was given the right 
of presiding at the Pythian games which were held at 
Delphi. By this means Philip made himself recognised 
by the Amphiktyonic Council as the champion of the 
god Apollo (comp. p. 25), and gained the right of in- 
terfering in Greek affairs whenever he could make out 
that any wrong had been done to the god and his 
temple (b.c. 346). 



no BYZANTIUM. [chap 

i6. Peloponnesus. — In most of the Pelopon- 
nesian States there were parties at enmity with one 
another. Philip skilfully turned this to his own account, 
and gained over one of the parties wherever he could. 
He made friends especially with the States which 
Epaminondas had founded(p.io5), for these were afraid 
of Sparta and anxious for foreign protection. To 
counteract the schemes of Philip, Demosthenes him- 
self went at the head of an embassy to the Pelopon- 
nesian States which had joined Philip, and tried to 
make them understand that they had joined the 
enemy of all Greece. Nothing resulted from this jour- 
ney ; but the warning of Demosthenes had now been 
clearly set before the Greeks. " Philip," he said, "is 
the enemy of all the Greeks alike. He is a king ; 
and if victorious, he will make the Greeks his sub- 
jects. Let the Greeks cease their quarrels with one 
another, and unite to preserve the liberty which 
is the birthright of the Greeks against the despot 
who seeks to enslave them all." Thus Demosthenes 
struggled not for Athens alone, but for the whole 
Greek race. 

17. Athens and Byzantium. — At first the Athe- 
nians had paid little regard to Demosthenes ; but as 
time went on, and all that he had said about Philip's 
ambition was seen to be true, a strong party gathered 
round him, and Athens at last began to act with vigour. 
After finishing the Sacred War, Philip went on con- 
quering eastwards in Thrace. He was as yet at peace 
with Athens, but an Athenian commander on the 
Thracian coast came into conflict with the Macedonian 
troops. Philip wrote a letter to Athens complaining 
of this, and proposing a closer friendship. Demos- 
thenes stirred up the Athenians to reject Philip's offer, 
and to ally themselves with Byzantium, which Philip 
was now attacking. Help was sent from Athens to 
Byzantium ; it was effectual, and Philip had to give up 
the siege (b.c. 341). This success increased the powei 
of Demosthenes at Athens, and enabled him to 



fi.] CH^.RONEA, 111 

carry laws diminishing the useless expenditure ol 
the pubic money on festivals (p. io8), and creating 
a fund for carrying on the war. He also took 
measures for making the rich pay their fair share 
towards the lieet, on the strength of which, more 
than anything else, the success of Athens against 
Philip depended. 

1 8. Chaeronea. — But Philip had friends and hire- 
lings in abundance in Athens and in every other Greek 
State. The chief of these in Athens was ^schines, 
who, as an orator, was superior to everyone except 
Demosthenes, but, as a citizen, ranks among the 
worst men that Athens ever produced. ^Eschines was 
the deputy of Athens at the Amphiktyonic Council ; 
and there, in B.C. 338, he caused war to be declared 
by the Council against the neighbouring town of 
Amphissa on some trifling matter, in order that Philip 
might be summoned to take command (p. 109). Philip 
moved southward with a large army. Suddenly the 
news reached Athens that, instead of marching on 
Amphissa, Philip had seized Elateia in the east of 
Phokis, a place that commands the entrance to Bosotia 
and Attica. Amphissa had been a mere pretence; 
and the seizure of Elateia meant that Philip might at 
any moment be at the gates of Athens. The Assembly 
was summoned ; and when every one else was silent 
through fear and dismay, Demosthenes called upon 
the Athenians to ally themselves with Thebes, and 
meet Philip boldly. They did so ; and on August 
7th, B.C. '^'^^'^^ the Athenian and Theban armies 
encountered Philip at Chseronea in Boeotia. They 
were utterly overthrown, and Philip was master of 
Greece. 

19. Dsath of Philip. — Philip now summoned a 
congress of all the Greek States at Corinth. War was 
declared against Persia, and Phih'p was appointed 
commander of the entire force of Greece. He re- 
turned to Macedonia to prepare for the invasion of 
Asia. But in the very height of his glory, as he was 



112 ALEXANDER. [chap. 

celebrating the marriage festival of his daughter with 
the king of Epirus, he was murdered by a Mace- 
donian noble, and his crown passed to his son Alex- 
ander (B.C. 336). 



CHAPTER VII. 

EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER. 

1. Alexander Master of Greece. — Alexander, 
on coming to the throne, found everything ready for 
the invasion of Persia. As the death of Philip caused 
a movement in favour of liberty in some of the Greek 
States, Alexander instantly marched into Peloponnesus 
with a large army, in order to show the Greeks how 
strong he was. A congress was held as before at 
Corinth, and Alexander, though only twenty years old, 
was recognized as the head and the general of Greece. 
He then returned to Macedonia, and in the spring of 
B.C. 335 made an expedition against the barbarous 
nations north of Macedonia. He first fought his way 
through Thrace to the Danube, which he crossed, 
defeating the Getge who lived beyond it, and then 
turned south-west, and defeated the Illyrians on the 
west of Macedonia. While he was absent, a false 
report of his death reached Greece, and the Thebans 
revolted and besieged the Macedonian garrison in the 
Kadraeia. Alexander marched from Illyria with won- 
derful quickness, and captured Thebes. The city was 
razed to the ground, and the entire population sold 
as slaves. This complete destruction of the State 
which had lately been at the head of Greece struck 
terror into the ottier cities, and put an end to all 
thoughts of resistance. 

2. The Macedonian Army. Phalanx. — The 
army which Philip had prepared, and with which Alex- 
ander overthrew the Persian empire, was so armed 
a.nd arranged that, though it was not very nume- 
rous, it was the strongest force there had yet been in 
the world. The great feature of the Macedonian 



Wl.] THE PHALANX, 113 

army was the phalaiix. This was a body of foot soldiers 
armed with spears twenty-one feet long, and drawn up 
in sixteen ranks, each rank standing three feet behind 
the one in front of it, and holding their spears fifteen 
feet from the point and six feet from the heavy end, 
so that the spears of all the first five ranks would 
project in front of the men in the first rank, to the 
distance of three, six, nine, twelve, and fifteen feet re- 
spectively. The ordinary Greek spear projected only 
six feet; so that when the Thebans charged the Mace- 
donian phalanx at Chaeronea, they had to break through 
three rov/s of spear-points before their own could strike 
the Macedonians. The fault of the phalanx was that 
it could not turn round quickly, and that it required 
even ground to keep its order; and thus, though the 
phalanx was a stronger body of heavy armed troops 
than any that there had hitherto been in Greece, the 
Roman method of first throwing a short spear and 
then fighting with swords proved to be superior even 
to the phalanx, for in this there was nothing to prevent 
the soldiers being rapidly moved about in every direc- 
tion, and each man could fight for himself and use 
his sword just as well on rough ground as smooth. 
There is, however, no instance of the phalanx being 
beaten on good ground by troops with a shorter 
weapon attacking it in front. The Romans, when 
they met the phalanx, gained the victory by attacking 
it on the sides, and on hilly ground, where its spears 
could not be kept in their proper order. Alex- 
ander never used the phalanx by itself, but began 
his battles with other troops, and then brought up 
the phalanx to make the decisive charge and end the 
battle. 

3, Guard and Cavalry. — The soldiers in the 
phalanx were all native Macedonians : native Mace- 
donians also served in \hQ. guard — a body of infantry 
armed Avith the ordinary Greek spear and shield — 
and in two divisions of cavalry, one division wearing 
heavy armour and carrying a short thick spear for 



114 MILITARY MONARCHY. [chap 

fighting in regular battles, the other without much 
armour, and carrying a long light lance for scouring 
the country and pursuing the enemy. The king was 
attended by a band of young Macedonian nobles, 
called the pages. From this the young nobles wei'e 
promoted into a picked troop called the' body- 
guard, or, as we should say, the staff of the king, 
out of which the king chose his generals and gieatest 
officers. 

4. Other troops. — Besides these divisions of the 
army, composed of native Macedonians, there were 
regiments of Greeks, both infantry and cavalry, and 
also regiments drawn from the barbarian countries 
about Macedonia, armed with bows, javeUns, or other 
light arms. Above all there was a regular division of 
the army to work machines for hurling stones, both in 
sieges and in battles. These machines did, in an 
inferior manner, the work that cannon do now. In 
Greek warfare they had hitherto been employed only 
to batter walls in sieges, Alexander first used them 
with effect in batdes, and later on in history there i? 
an instance of a battle being decided by this kind of 
artillery. 

5. Military Monarchy. — Thus the Macedonian 
army, though not numbering above 40,000 men, com- 
prised troops and appliances for every kind of service. 
In its spirit it was as unlike the army of a Greek 
State as possible. In a Greek army the soldiers were 
the citizens themselves (pp. 15, 41), who, as soon as the 
war was over, returned to their ordinary life ; and the 
generals were citizens too, and were elected by the 
people. But in the Macedonian army the king was 
everything. The soldiers had never known what it 
was to act as citizens ; they knew little about laws or 
liberty, but were devoted to their king, who led them 
and fought in the midst of them. The generals had 
begun by being the king's pages ; then they had ac- 
companied him in his body-guard, and had been 
promoted because they had gained his friendship 01 



711.] ALEXANDER, 115 

good opinion. Liberty is out of the question in a 
State where the army is thus the instrument of a single 
man, like Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon : but the 
army itself, supposing the monarch to be a good 
general, becomes exceedingly effective, both because 
the love of soldiers for their general is one of the 
strongest feelings that men can have, and makes them 
do wonders of bravery and endurance, and also because 
an army is always far better directed when a single 
good commander is supreme than when a number Qf 
generals succeed one another in the command, or the 
government of the State has the right to interfere with 
the action of the general. It happened that Alexander, 
who had now absolute command of the army which 
Philip had brought to such perfection, was a man of 
extraordinary genius for war. From all these causes 
the Macedonian army, with Alexander at its head, 
was such a force as there had never yet been in 
history, and could probably without much difhculty 
have conquered the entire world. 

6. Character of Alexander. — Alexander deserves 
his name of the Gi'eat for his wonderful qualities as a 
general and for his natural power over men. No human 
being ever showed such energy in war. While ne never 
spared himself, his marches sometimes killed with 
fatigue the men and horses who accompanied him. 
Whatever there was to do, he did it with the utmost 
swiftness : generals and soldiers felt that they were 
commanded by a man whom nothing could resist. 
It is true that his adversaries were chiefly Asiatics, 
so that the victories which he won in pitched battles 
would not by themselves prove Alexander to have 
been a great general : but the readiness in which 
his troops were always found, the astonishingly long 
and swift marches which he made them perform, 
the certainty with which he carried out everything 
that he attempted, and the confidence which his 
soldiers felt in him, prove him to have been an extra- 
ordinary leader. Roman generals capable of forming 



Ii6 CONQUEST OF ASIA MINOR. [chap. 

a good judgment considered Alexander to have been 
the greatest of all commanders except Hannibal the 
Karthaginian. In bravery, determination, and high 
spirit, no man ever surpassed him. But when we look 
beyond the qualities of the soldier, and compare 
Alexander with Perikles or other of the really noblest 
Greeks, he is often not great at all, but contemptible. 
If he had only slaughtered his prisoners, that would 
not have been a stain on his character, for it was a 
common practice at the time : but Alexander dragged 
alive behind his chariot a general who had gallantly 
opposed him ; he tortured and put to death on mere 
suspicion Philotas, the commander of his cavalry, 
whose friend he had pretended to be up to the last 
moment; he killed by craft Parmenio, one of his 
oldest generals, the father of Philotas, on the same 
suspicion; he took advantage of being a king to murder 
Klitus, one of his oldest friends, in savage drunkeji- 
ness ; he tortured and hanged Kallisthenes, a Greek 
writer, or. suspicion of a conspiracy, but in part because 
Kallisthenes had refused to worship him as a god. 
Alexander is sometimes spoken of as the hero of 
Greece, but the truth is that there was very little of 
the Greek in him at all, and much more of the half- 
barbarian king. In the last years of his hfe conquest 
and glory brought out the savage and wilful parts of 
his nature (p. 30) ; and if he is to be treated as a 
Greek, some of his acts can only be compared to those 
of the very worst tyrants. He was the complete 
opposite of men like Perikles or Eparainondas, who, 
as their power increased, kept the stricter watch over 
themselves, and were the more anxious to respect the 
rights of others. 

7. Conquest of Asia Minor. — In b.c. 334 
Alexander crossed the Hellespont. The best troops 
which the Persians had to oppose to him were regi- 
ments of hired Greeks, and the commander of these, 
Memnon, a Rhodian, understood war Avell. Memnon 
advised the Persian satraps not to fight a pitched battle 



vn.] CAPJVKh OF TYEJs., 117 

with Alexander, but to defend the mountain passes 
and the towns, and to send the Phoenician fleet, which 
was superior to Alexander's, to excite the Greeks 
against Macedonia and attack Macedonia itself. The 
satraps, however, would not listen to Memnon, but 
fought a battle near the Hellespont on the river 
Granikus, which Alexander won after very hard fighting. 
Darius, king of Persia, now gave the commandership 
te Memnon. Memnon prepared to act by sea, and 
gained over several of the ^gsean islands ; but soon 
after this he fell ill and died. Alexander overran Asia 
Minor, and Darius, giving up the plans of Memnon, 
collected an enormous army to fight a pitched battle. 
The battle was fought near Issus, on the borders 
of Kilikia and Syria (first map). Darius fled with 
shameful cowardice ; and though the native Per- 
sians fought bravely, Alexander gained a complete 
victory, and the family of Darius fell into his hands 
(b.c. 333). 

8. Conquest of Phoenicia. — Darius retreated 
across the Euphrates, but instead of pursuing him 
Alexander turned south into Phoenicia. Damascus 
was taken, and the Phoenician seaports, except Tyre, 
surrendered without a blow. This caused the Phoe- 
nician fleet employed by the Persians to break up, 
and the best chance of the Persians against Alexander 
was now gone. Tyre alone refused to admit Alex- 
ander. The city of Tyre was built on an island half a 
mile from the mainland, and was surrounded by an 
immensely strong wall (Ezekiel xxvii. 3, 11). The 
Tyrians had ships, and Alexander had none, so that 
in their island city it seemed as if they might safely 
defy him. But Alexander determined to reach Tyre 
on dry ground, by building a solid stone pier 200 feet 
broad across the half mile of sea, and thus connecting 
Tyre with the land. The pier was built, but when it 
came near the city walls the Tyrians again and again 
destroyed it At last Alexander had to bring up the 
fleet of the other Phoenician cities to protect the 



Ii8 FOUNDATION OF ALEXANDRIA. [chap 

builders. The pier was finished ; Alexander's siege 
engines were rolled along it, and a breach was at length 
made in tlie city wall. After a most furious struggle 
Tyre was taken by assault. The siege lasted seven 
months ; both the attack made by Alexander and the 
defence made by the Tyrians are among the most 
famous in history (b.c. 332). 

9. Egypt. Alexandria. — From Phoenicia Alex 
ander passed into Egypt, which made no resistance. 
The Persians had provoked the Egyptians by in- 
suiting their animal gods (p. 52) : Alexander on the 
contrary, offered sacrifices to them, in order that the 
Egyptians and other nations might see that he 
meant to respect their religion, and might welcome 
his government in place of the Persian. He now 
founded the city of Alexandria at the mouth of the 
Nile. Alexandria afterwards became the most im- 
portant city in the world, except Rome, but Alexander 
cannot have foreseen this. His object in founding 
it was probably to connect Egypt with the rest of his 
empire by creating as its capital a trading town 
on the coast, with a population of mixed Greeks and 
Egyptians. 

10. Arbela. Marches of Alexander. — After 
visiting the temple of Ammon in the desert west of 
Egypt, Alexander marched through Syria to the north- 
east, and having crossed the Euphrates and Tigris, 
encountered Darius and a vast army near Arbela, not 
very far from Nineveh. Darius again fled from the 
battle at the first sight of danger, and Alexander won a 
complete victory (b.c. 331). He now acted as master 
of the Persian empire, and appointed the satraps. 
He entered Babylon with great pomp, and pleased 
the priests and people by sacrificing to their gods, 
and by ordering the temples which the Persians had 
destroyed to be rebuilt. Having given his troops a 
month's rest, he marched to Susa, and from thence to 
Persepolis (south-east), the capital of the native dis- 
trict of the Persians. Immense treasure was found 



VII.] DEATH OF DARIUS. 119 

here and though no resistance was made, Alexander 
burnt the town and let the soldiers massacre part of 
the inhabitants, merely to avenge the invasion of 
Greece, 150 years before, upon the native capital of 
the Persians (b.c. 330). 

11. Death of Darius. — Darius had fled from 
Arbela to Ekbatana in Media, and Alexander now set 
out in pursuit of him. As Alexander approached, 
Darius escaped eastwards through the mountains al 
the south end of the Caspian S^a. Alexander pur- 
sued day and night ; but, when he came in sight, 
Darius was murdered by Bessus, one of his own 
nobles, that he might not give himself up to Alex- 
ander. 

12. Alexander beyond the Caspian. — After 
reducing the country at the south of the Caspian, 
Alexander marched east and south, through what is 
now Persia and Afghanistan. On his way he founded 
the colony of Alexandria Arion, now Herat, an im- 
portant military position on the western border of 
Afghanistan. At Prophthasia (Furrah), a litde further 
south, he stayed two months, and it was here that 
Philotas was put to death (b.c. 330). Thence he went 
on eastwards and founded a city, said to be the modern 
Candahar, and then turned north and crossed the 
Hindo Koosh mountains, founding another colony 
near what is now Cabul. Bessus had intended to 
resist Alexander in Bactria (Balkh), but he fled north- 
wards, and was taken and put to death. Alexander 
kept on marching northwards, and took Marakanda, 
now Samarcand, the capital of Bokhara (e.c. 329). 
He crossed the river Jaxartes (Sir), running into the 
sea of Aral, and defeated the Scythians beyond it, but 
did not penetrate their country. He intended the 
Jaxartes to be the northern frontier of his empire, 
and founded on it the colony of Alexandria Eschate 
{koyJiTt], the furthest). The conquest of Sogdiana 
(Bokhara) gave Alexander some trouble, and occupied 
him till the year b.c. 327. 

11 



120 ALEXANDER IN INDIA. [chap. 

13. Alexander in India. — In B.C. 327 Alexander 
set out from Bactria to conquer India. He reached 
the upper Indus, and having crossed it near Attock, 
marched on eastwards through the Punjaub. Beyond 
the Hydaspes (Jelura), Porus, king of the country, 
met Alexander and fought a battle ; he was defeated, 
but Alexander allowed him to keep his kingdom as 
his vassal. Going on eastward he came to the 
Hj^phasis (Sutlej or Gurrah) : and now the soldiers 
refused to go any further in spite of Alexander's 
entreaties. Alexander therefore turned back, but 
when he reached the Hydaspes, he put part of the 
army on board boats, and ordered the rest to march 
along the bank down the river. The Hydaspes flows 
into the Akesines (Chenab), and that into the Indus, 
At the junction of the Akesines and Indus a town 
and docks were laid out, and the army and fleet went 
down the Indus till they reached its mouth, and saw 
the Indian Ocean (b.c. 325). Thus 2,000 years ago 
Alexander explored the course of that river along 
which English engineers are now (a.d. 1875) la-ying 
down a railway. 

14. Voyage of Nearchus. — Alexander was as 
eager for discovery as for conquest ; and from the 
mouth of the Indus he sent his fleet, under the admiral 
Nearchus, to make their way along the coast to the 
mouth of the Euphrates. He himself marched west- 
wards with the army through the deserts of Beloo- 
chistan, and brought them after terrible suff"erings, 
through thirst, disease, and fatigue, again to PersepoHs 
(B.C. 324). From this he went to Susa, where he 
stayed some months, investigating the conduct of his 
satraps, and punishing some of them severely. 

15 Asiatic habits of Alexander. — Since the 
battle of Arbela, Alexander had become more *and 
more like a Persian king in his way of living, although 
he did not allow it to interfere with his activity. He 
dressed in the Persian manner, and took up the 
ceremonies of the Persian court The soldiers were 



^rii.] DEATH OF ALEXANDER, 121 

displeased at his giving up the habits of Macedonia, 
and at Susa he provoked them still more by making 
eighty of his chief officers marry Persian wives. The 
object of Alexander was to break down distinctions 
of race and country in his empire, and to abolish 
the great gulf that there had hitherto been between 
the Greeks and the Asiatics. He also enrolled many 
Persians in the regiments which had hitherto contained 
none but Macedonians, and levied 30,000 troops from 
the most warhke districts of Asia, whom he armed in 
the Macedonian manner. 

16. Death of Alexander. — Since the voyage of 
Nearchus, Alexander had determined on an expedi- 
tion against Arabia by sea, and had given orders for 
ships to be built in Phoenicia, and then taken to pieces 
and carried by land to Thapsakus on the Euphrates. 
At Thapsakus they were to be put together again, and 
so make their way to Babylon, from which the expe- 
dition was to start. In the spring of B.C. 323, Alex- 
ander set out from Susa for Babylon. On his journey 
he was met by embassies from nearly all the States 
of the known world. At Babylon he found the 
ships ready : fresh troops had arrived, both Greek 
and Asiatic; and the expedition was on the point 
of starting, when Alexander was seized with fever 
and died (June, B.C. 323). He was only thirty-two 
years old. 

17. The Aims of Alexander. — It is sometimes 
said that the purpose of Alexander was to make Asia 
hke Greece, by founding cities like the Greek. The 
actual result of his conquests was that the western 
part of Asia later on became partly Greek, but this 
was much more the work of Alexander's successors 
than of x^lexander himself. With the exception ot 
Alexandria, the colonies which Alexander founded 
were settlements of soldiers in remote districts, for the 
purpose of keeping the empire in subjection, not ot 
making it Greek. That Alexander wished to make the 
nations of his empire more like a single people is clear 



(22 AIMS OF ALEXANDER, [chap. 

from his encouraging his soldiers to marry Persian 
women ; but this is not the same thing as saying that 
he wished to spread Greek intelhgence, art, and liter- 
ature, over his empire by means of cities. Nor is there 
any reason to suppose that Alexander meant to intro- 
duce a new system of government into the Persian 
Empire. He kept up the satrapies and the Persian 
mode of taxation ; and the chief tference between 
his government and that of the Persian kings would 
be, that x^lexander meant to preserve absolute authority 
himself by means of his army, and to keep the satraps 
completely under his own control, whereas the Persian 
kings had been weak and indolent, and the satraps 
had become like independent princes. It is clear 
from his dealings with Egypt and Babylon that he 
meant to pay more attention to the wishes of the 
different nations of the empire than the Persians had 
done ; and, though he had no new system of govern- 
ment, he would have greatly altered the condition of 
the empire by making roads, ports, and docks, and 
everything that could advance commerce and bring the 
different nations into communication with one another. 
In the matter of government Alexander probably 
thought that the Greeks had more to learn from the 
Persians than the Persians from the Greeks, and con- 
sidered the Persian system of one great empire under 
a single king to be much better, when vigorously con- 
ducted, than the Greek system of little States and 
leagues. 

i8. Results of Alexander's Conquests. — At 
the death of Alexander his empire was divided among 
his generals. A great number of cities, such as 
Antioch (Acts xi. 26) and Seleucia, were founded in 
western Asia, inhabited partly by Asiatics, partly by 
Greeks coming from all the scattered Greek States. 
It was the experience of the Greeks in setthng 
among other races (p. 35) that now made them 
able to settle so successfully in Asia, and introduce 
their own ways among the people wherever the); 



vih] GREEK HABITS IN WESTERN ASIA. 123 

settled. Though under the dominion of Alexander's 
successors these cities could not be independent 
States like the old Greek cities, and could therefore 
bring little of the old Greek liberty, high spirit, and self- 
respect into Asia, they spread the Greek language and 
the common Greek habits of life very extensively. 
In external appearance these cities would be Greek : 
there would be the temples, statues, baths, theatre, 
colonnades, &c., of a Greek city ; religious ceremonies 
and festivals would be conducted in the Greek manner 
(Acts xiv. 11-13); Greek would be the language most 
spoken, and Greek books would be read and written ; 
though from the mixture of races there would always 
be something about the citizens distinguishing them 
from the inhabitants of purely Greek States. In some 
districts, as in Syria, Greek habits spread very easily ; 
in others, as in Judaea, the most obstinate resistance 
to them was made by the native population. Antio- 
chus Epiphanes. king of Syria, tried to introduce 
Greek worship at the Temple of Jerusalem. The 
Jews revolted, under the Maccabees, and made them- 
selves independent (b c. 160). Yet in spite of this the 
Greek language and a good many Greek ideas spread 
over the towns of Judaea. Thus the books of the 
New Testament were written in Greek. 

19. Asia. — Alexander's empire broke up into three 
principal kingdoms — Macedonia, Asia, and Egypt. 
The kings of Asia were the Seleukidae, the descendants 
of Seleukus, one of Alexander's generals. They 
were not able to preserve Alexander's conquests in 
Asia as a single kingdom. One part after another of 
their empire was lost. Rhodes and other islands 
formed a powerful maritime league and kept them- 
selves independent. On the west coast of Asia Minor 
there rose an independent kingdom called Pergamus, 
Greek in its manners ; in the north and centre of 
Asia Minor a number of States were formed, such 
as Pontus and Kappadokia, with little trace of any- 
thing Greek about them. Beyond the Euphrates the 



124 EGYPT. MACEDONIA. [chap. 

Parthians revolted and founded a regular Asiatic 
State. The Jews made themselves free in the south. 
Thus the kingdom of Asia was gradually narrowed 
down to the kingdom of Syria ; and together with 
all the other States as far as the Euphrates it fell 
at last into the hands of the Romans, and became a 
province of the Roman empire (b.c. d'^. 

20. Egypt. — Egypt was governed by the family of 
the Ptolemies; and, as in Asia^ Greek was the lan- 
guage employed in government, and the principal 
offices were in the hands of Greeks. The Greeks and 
the native Egyptians kept quite distinct from one 
another (Acts xxi. 37, ^3^%). Alexandria was thronged 
with Greeks and Jews. A University was founded 
there, and all the most learned men of Greece were 
brought together. Euclid the mathematician and 
Ptolemy the astronomer wrote at Alexandria. There 
was a library which contained almost everything that 
had been written in Greek. But though science and 
learning flourished in Alexandria, there was none of 
the old Greek poetic genius, or simple, natural, force 
of mind. Nothing was written there to compare with 
the works of the great Athenian writers. It w^as at 
Alexandria that the Greek translation of the Old 
Testament was made (b.c. 275-250), and that learned 
Jews became acquainted with the ideas of those 
Greeks who had thought most on religion. The last 
Greek sovereign of Egypt was the famous Queen 
Cleopatra. At her death Egypt was made a Roman 
province by Augustus, B.C. 30. 

21. Macedonia. — There was confusion in Mace- 
donia for a long time after the death of Alexander, 
and we cannot here relate the wars of the rival 
kings. In B.C. 289 a tribe of Gauls invaded Mace- 
donia, and did much mischief: they afterwards crossed 
into Asia Minor, where they learnt something of Greek 
ways, and formed the state called Galatia, or Gallo- 
Grgecia (Acts xvi. 6). After this things became settled 
in Macedonia, and the descendants of Antigonus, one 



ni.] ACHMAN LEAGUE, 125 

of Alexander's generals, kept the throne until the 
Romans put an end to the monarchy. Philip, who 
was king of Macedon at the time of the second war 
between Karthage and Rome, allied himself with 
Karthage ; and when the war was over, the Romans 
made war on Philip and defeated him at Kynos- 
kephalae (b.c. 197). They put an end to the control of 
Macedonia over Greece, and declared all the Greek 
States to be free. In B.C. 171, there was again war 
between Macedonia and Rome, Perseus being nov/ 
king. Perseus was overthrown in the battle of Pydna 
(B.C. 168) : the monarchy was abolished, and Mace- 
donia divided into five repubHcs. Twenty-two years 
later, on pretence of a rebellion, Macedonia was 
made a Roman province. 

22. Greek States. Achaean League. — At 
the death of Alexander, Athens and many other 
States rose against Macedon, but were brought into 
subjection. Demosthenes had to fly from Athens, 
and being pursued by the Macedonians took poison 
to avoid ■ falling into their hands. For the next fifty 
years there was confusion. About B.C. 260 Antigonus 
Gonatas, king of Macedonia, was master of all Greece, 
except Sparta. Freedom, however, was now restored 
to a large part of Greece by the growth of two 
leagues, the Achaan League and the ALtoliaii League. 
The Achaean League was originally the league of ten 
Achaean cities on the north coast of Peloponnesus 
(p. 15), and hitherto it had done nothing in Greek 
history. Antigonus had established tyrants in these 
cities, and it was in the effort to get rid of these, and 
to free other cities from similar tyrants, that the league 
became the active and important enemy of Macedon. 
About B.C. 240, Aratus of Sikyon, who had united 
Sikyon to the league, and been made its president, 
rescued Corinth from the Macedonians ; and the 
league was now joined not only by all the Pelopon- 
nesian cities except Sparta and a few others, but by 
Athens and ^Egina. 



126 GREECE MADE A ROMAN PROVINCE, [chap. 

23. ./Etolian League. — North of tlie Corinthian 
Gulf the rough tribes of the ^tohans (p. 88), who did 
not live in cities Hke most of the Greeks, and were alto- 
gether more like a barbarous people, formed a league 
which now became very powerful. They gained con- 
trol over Phokis, Lokris, and Boeotia ; but were held 
in ill repute on account of their plundering expeditions. 

24. Sparta.— Sparta had preserved its independence 
against Macedonia, but it had lost its old character ; 
the number of full citizens had fallen to 700, and all the 
land belonged to about 100 families. About B.C. 240, 
Agis, king of Sparta, attempted to abolish debts and 
divide the land, so as to create a large body of citizens 
anew. He was opposed by the rich and put to death, 
but his successor, Kleomenes, carried out his plans, 
and made Sparta again for the moment a powerful 
state. The Achaean League and Sparta were jealous 
of one another, and went to war. Kleomenes de- 
feated Aratus, and Aratus sacrificed the independent 
character of the League by asking the Macedonian 
king for help, and allowing it to fall very much under 
the control of Macedon. Sparta was overthrown (b.c. 
221), but the League gained nothing by it. Immedi- 
ately afterwards there was war between the Achaean 
and .^.^tolian Leagues, and the Ach^an League again 
asked help of Macedonia. 

25. Greece made a Roman Province. — In 
B.C. 211, on account of Philip's assisting Hannibal, 
the Romans made alHance with the ^tolian League 
against him ; and from mis tune the Romans con- 
tinued to interfere in the affairs of Greece, until in 
B.C. 146, having been appealed to by Sparta against 
the Acheean League, they captured Corinth, and made 
Greece into a Roman province. 

26. The Vice of the Greeks their Disunion. 
W\ through Greek history there is the same cause 
at work, ruining the power of Greece, and causing it 
endless miseries, — the incapacity of the Greeks lor 
acting together. Not only does this appear in the 



vir.J DISUNION OF THE GREEKS. 127 

wars between the cities, and in their failure to form 
any lasting union, but still more in the division which 
existed within each city. Within the same city-walls the 
opposite parties hated one another more bitterly than 
any foreign enemy. Other nations have had a greater 
gift for government, and have possessed that power of 
acting together which was so fatally wanting in the 
Greeks. In reading the history of, the Greeks this 
great fault is brought clearly before us ; but many of 
the great qualiues of the Greeks do not come before 
us in a history at all. Their quickness, their love of 
knowledge, their power of creating beautiful things, 
cannot be brought home to us by a mere account of 
their actions. To understand these, and to do justice 
to the real greatness of the Greeks, we must read the 
books written by the Greeks themselves, and know 
something of their works of art. No one who has 
taken the troubte to make himself thus acquainted 
with the Greeks has ever regretted the labour whicii 
it cost him. 



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